Sourcebook: The Secret Team

22 January 1963, Mexico City, at "La Reforma" nightclub. 

Shown, clockwise from front left, are alleged to be: 

David Sanchez Morales, 

David Sanchez Morales was born on 26th August, 1925. He spent his early life in Phoenix, Arizona. A Mexican-American, Morales was later to be nicknamed El Indio because of his dark skin and Indian features. As a boy his best friend was Ruben Carbajal. After his mother divorced his father he was virtually adopted by Carbajal's parents.

Morales attended Arizona State College in Tempe (now Arizona State University) during the 1944-45 school year, before moving to Los Angeles and attending the University of Southern California (1945-46).

Morales joined the United States Army in 1946 and after basic training was sent to Germany where he was part of the Allied occupation force. According to Ruben Carbajal, Morales was recruited into army intelligence in 1947. However, officially he was a member of 82nd Airborne. It was during this time he began associating with Ted Shackley and William Harvey.

In 1951 became a employee of the Central Intelligence Agency while retaining his army cover. The following year he joined the Directorate for Plans, an organization instructed to conduct covert anti-Communist operations around the world.

In 1953 he returned to the United States and after a spell at the University of Maryland he assumed cover as a State Department employee. Morales became involved in CIA's Black Operations. This involved a policy that was later to become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). This including a coup d'état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after he introduced land reforms and nationalized the United Fruit Company. After the removal of Arbenz he joined the staff of the US embassy in Caracas (1955-58). During this time he became known as the CIA's top assassin in Latin America.

Morales moved to Cuba in 1958 and helped to support the government of Fulgencio Batista. In 1960 Wayne S. Smith was a State Department officer in the American Embassy in Havana. Smith tells the story of being in a bar in Havana with Morales. After a heavy drinking session Morales began talking about the CIA’s secret operations that involved frog men operating out of Guantanamo Bay. Smith told Gaeton Fonzi (The Last Investigation) that Morales was very indiscrete when drunk. According to fellow CIA agent, Robert N. Wall: "He (Morales) was a rough-neck. He was a bully, a hard-drinker and big enough to get away with a lot of stuff other people couldn't get away with.”

This photograph, taken of David Morales in 1959,

appeared in a Cuban newspaper in 1978.

In November, 1961, William Harvey arranged for Morales to be posted to JM/WAVE , the CIA station in Miami. Morales was operations chief for the CIA's covert operation to train and infiltrate teams into Cuba to destabilize the Castro government. Morales reported directly to veteran Agency covert operator Ted Shackley, who was the Agency’s Miami bureau chief. In May, 1962, Morales was seconded to ZR/RIFLE, the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. During this period he worked closely with David Atlee Phillips, Tracy Barnes, William Pawley, Johnny Roselli and John Martino.

Some researchers such as Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, Noel Twyman, James Richards and John Simkin believe that Morales was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It has been suggested that others involved included Carl E. Jenkins, Rafael Quintero, William Pawley, Roy Hargraves, Edwin Collins, Steve Wilson, Herminio Diaz Garcia, Tony Cuesta, Eugenio Martinez, Virgilio Gonzalez, Felipe Vidal Santiago, Theodore Shackley, Grayston Lynch, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, Gordon Campbell, Tony Sforza and William (Rip) Robertson.

According to CIA agent Tom Clines, Morales helped Felix Rodriguez capture Che Guevara in 1965. "We all admired the hell out of the guy. He drank like crazy, but he was bright as hell. He could fool people into thinking he was stupid by acting stupid, but he knew about cultural things all over the world. People were afraid of him. He was big and aggressive, and he had this mystique. Stories about him permeated the Agency. If the Agency needed someone action-oriented, he was at the top of the list. If the U.S. government as a matter of policy needed someone or something neutralized, Dave would do it, including things that were repugnant to a lot of people.”

In 1966 Ted Shackley was placed in charge of CIA secret war in Laos. He recruited Morales to take charge at Pakse, a black operations base focused on political paramilitary action within Laos. Pakse was used to launch military operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trial. In 1969 Morales moved to Vietnam where he officially worked as a Community Development Officer for the International Development Agency.

David Morales second from left in Vietnam in around 1969.

Morales moved to Chile in 1970. He was a member of the team that used $10 million in order to undermine left-wing forces in the country. Morales told friends that he had personally eliminated several political figures. He was also involved in helping Augusto Pinochet overthrow Salvador Allende in September, 1973.

After arriving back in the United States Morales moved to Washington where he became Consultant to the Deputy Director for Operations Counter Insurgency and Special Activities. Larry Hancock believes that during this period he provided advice to right-wing governments (Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Argentina) as part of Operation Condor.

According to his friend, Ruben Carbajal, in the spring of 1973, Morales talked about his involvement with the Bay of Pigs operation. He claimed "Kennedy had been responsible for him having to watch all the men he recruited and trained get wiped out". He added: "Well, we took care of that SOB, didn't we?"

Another example of Morales indiscretion was allowing his photograph to be taken by Kevin Schofield at the El Molino restaurant on 4th August, 1973. The picture appeared in the Arizona Republic with the following text: “Feted by friends at a fiesta Saturday was former American counsul to Cuba, David Sanchez, left, who was in that country when Castro took over… In government service for 28 years, Sanchez is now consultant in the office of deputy director for Operations Counter-insurgency and Special Activities in Washington.”

Left to right: Bob and Florence Walton, David Morales, Joe Morales (father), Rose Morales (mother), Paul Morales (brother) and his wife (1977).

Soon afterwards Morales left the CIA. However, he continued to make regular trips to Washington. When asked about this by his friend Ruben Carbajal, Morales replied: “Oh, they run into some problems, I have to go up there and take care of them. These people never let go of you.”

Morales built a new house at El Frita, which is about half-way between Willcox and the Mexican border. Morales told another friend, Robert Walton, that he had put in the best security system in the United States. Walton said, “What do you need so much security for? You're still thirty miles from the Mexican border.” Morales replied, “I'm not worried about those people, I'm worried about my own."

Gaeton Fonzi, staff investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HUCA) found out about Morales from CIA asset, Paul Bethel, who worked for David Atlee Phillips. It was suggested that Morales might have been the “Latin-looking” man seen with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans during the summer of 1963.

Fonzi had also read David Phillips’s autobiography, The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service. It includes a reference to a CIA agent who used the code-name Hector (William (Rip) Robertson) and his “sidekick ‘El Indio’, a massive American of Mexican and Indian extraction I had seen only briefly during the revolt (the CIA-stage 1954 Guatemala coup) but was to work with in other operations over the years.” El Indio was Morales.

When Fonzi interviewed David Atlee Phillips on behalf of the HSCA he asked him about Morales. Phillips said that Morales was an unimportant figure in the CIA and suggested that he might have died as a result of his heavy drinking. At this stage Morales was still alive. What is more, Morales was far from being an important figure, he had in fact been Chief of Operations at JM/WAVE in 1963 and at the centre of the operation to kill Fidel Castro. Fonzi also discovered that Morales had worked very closely with John Rosselli, who also played a key role in the plots against Castro. Rosselli was to be one of the first people to be interviewed by the HSCA but went missing in July 1976. His body was later discovered in the Intracoastal Waterway in North Miami. He had been cut up and stuffed into a 55-gallon steel drum.

Morales began to worry about his own health during the HSCA investigations. Rip Robertson had died in 1970 and could not be interviewed. William Pawley committed suicide in 1977 when he was asked to appear before the HSCA. The other key figure, in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, CIA officer, Carl E. Jenkins, had remained deeply undercover and was not being investigated by the HSCA.

David Sanchez Morales made his last trip to Washington in early May, 1978. Ruben Carbajal had a drink with Morales a few days later. Carbajal told him he looked unwell. He replied: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Ever since I left Washington I haven’t been feeling very comfortable”. That night he was taken to hospital. Carbajal went to visit him the next morning. As Carbajal later recalled: “They wouldn’t let no one in, they had his room surrounded by sheriff’s deputies.” Later that day (8th May) the decision was taken to withdraw his life support. Morales’s wife, Joanne, requested that there should not be an autopsy.

In a letter sent to John R. Tunheim in 1994, Bradley E. Ayers claimed that nine people based at JM/WAVE "have intimate operational knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assassination" of John F. Kennedy. Ayers named David Sanchez Morales, Theodore Shackley, Grayston Lynch, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, Gordon Campbell, Rip Robertson, Edward Roderick and Tony Sforza as the men who had this information.

Bradley E. Ayers was interviewed by Jeremy Gunn of the Assassination Records Review Board in May, 1995. According to Gunn: “Ayers claims to have found in the course of his private investigative work, a credible witness who can put David Morales inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of June 5, 1968 (RFK’s assassination)."

In January 2004, E. Howard Hunt gave a taped interview with his son, Saint John Hunt, claiming that Lyndon Baines Johnson was the instigator of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and that it was organised by Morales, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips and Frank Sturgis.

While researching a documentary, Shane O'Sullivan discovered a news film of the Ambassador Hotel on the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Bradley Ayers and other people who knew them, identified David Sanchez Morales, Gordon Campbell and George Joannides as being three men in the hotel that day. An article about this story appeared in The Guardian and on BBC Newsnight on 20th November, 2006.

Porter Goss (arm around Morales), 

Porter Goss was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on 26th November, 1938. After graduating from Yale University with a degree in Greek classics in 1960 he joined the Army Reserve Officers Training (ROTC) program. From there, he said he "gravitated to the CIA" in 1961.

Over the next few years he was based at the JM/WAVE, the CIA station in Miami where he worked with people such as Ted Shackley, David Sanchez Morales, Edward Lansdale, William Harvey and Tracy Barnes. However, Goss claimed in an interview with Don Bohning: "I knew Shackley but I was so junior compared to those people… a basic Boy Scout at that point."

After the Bay of Pigs disaster President John F. Kennedy sanctioned what became known as Operation Mongoose. Robert Kennedy took overall control of the operation and Edward Lansdale was appointed project leader and was given the responsibility to "use our available assets to help Cuba overthrow the Communist regime." It has been claimed that Goss was one of the 400 CIA officers who was employed on the project.

Goss spoke Spanish and this was very useful as the JM/WAVE station ran 2,200 Cuban agents. Recently, Vince Cannistraro, a CIA agent at JM/WAVE claimed that Goss was involved in paramilitary activity against the Cubans: "I know he was involved in the Bay of Pigs operation, he worked out of Miami with Cuban exiles... and took part in... attempts to overthrow Castro".

In an interview with Don Bohning Goss claimed that during the period surrounding the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis he worked primarily as a photo interpreter. He also did duty during that period as a small boat handler "as a matter of dealing with lots of people moving around but I never went into Cuba."

As a result of negotiations following the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy called an end to Operation Mongoose. Over the next few years Goss served in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Western Europe. His main area of expertise was the infiltration of trade unions and other organizations of the labour movement. According to Don Bohning: "While saying he was not at liberty to say what his main area of expertise was", Goss said this page's description of his CIA activities was "a stretch."

In his book, Barry and the Boys (2001), Daniel Hopsicker published a photograph given to him by the wife of Barry Seal. Hopsicker claims that the picture "was taken at a night-club in Mexico City on January 22, 1963" and includes members of Operation 40. It has also been suggested that one of the men in the photograph is Porter Goss. According to Don Bohning, Goss claimed he had "never heard of Operation 40," but declared with some vehemence the man identified in the nightclub photo "categorically, decisively and completely was not me."

In 1970 Porter Goss contracted a bacteriological infection that almost killed him. The following year he purchased a home on Sanibel Island, in south-west Florida. He officially left the CIA in 1972 and began a boat letting agency. He also worked as a reporter on the local newspaper and between 1974 and 1982 served on the city council. Goss was also commissioner of Lee County, Florida (1983-1988).

A member of the Republican Party, Goss was elected to Congress in 1988. Gross has been chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 1996. In this position has called for making the law prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders more flexible. After the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa, Goss declared that the CIA had become too "gun-shy."

Some observers have been highly critical of Goss' performance as chairman of what one has called the "oversight committee". Goss remained loyal to George W. Bush and during the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame scandal defended the White House official who publicly exposed the identity of an undercover agent. Goss did not seem concerned that the leak was an act of political retaliation against the agent's spouse.

In an interview with his local newspaper, The Herald-Tribune, Porter Goss said the case was the result of "wild and unsubstantiated allegations, which are being obviously piled on by partisan politicians during an election year." There was no need to mount an investigation, he said, because there was no evidence of "willful disclosure". Goss was not asked how he was able to come to this conclusion without an investigation. To illustrate his partisan view of his office, he remarked: "Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation."

Goss has also used his position to attack statements made by John Kerry on national security. After one speech he announced that Kerry had "neglected the president's historic achievements" while at the same time embracing "the goals that the president has already laid to make the world a safer place."

Goss' loyalty was rewarded in August, 2004, when President George W. Bush announced that he was nominated to become the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Goss took office on September 24, 2004. He had promised the US Senate that he would bring change and reform to the CIA. However, he soon came into conflict with several senior officials in the agency.

Porter Goss told CIA staff in 2004 that their job was “to support the Bush administration and its policies in our work”. Some senior CIA figures who opposed the Iraq War resigned. This included Michael Scheuer, former head of the “Bin Laden Station”. Vince Cannistraro, a former head of the CIA’s counter-terrorist centre, commented: “It can only be interpreted one way – there will be no more dissenting opinions.”

Goss was forced to resign as Director of the CIA in May, 2006. The Los Angeles Times reported that he left the CIA because of John Negroponte: "Goss was pushed out by Negroponte after clashes between them over Goss' management style, as well as his reluctance to surrender CIA personnel and resources to new organizations set up to combat terrorism and weapons proliferation."

According to other sources, his resignation was linked to the investigation of top CIA official Kyle Foggo who had been accused improperly steered a $2.4 million contract to his close college friend Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor implicated in the Randy Cunningham case. The New York Daily News reported: "The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.... Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee."

Barry Seal,

Barry Seal, the son of a candy wholesaler, was born in Baton Rouge on 16th July, 1939. Seal's father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Seal became obsessed with aircraft and took his first solo flight at the age of fifteen and was soon making a living towing advertising banners. In 1955 Seal joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) in Baton Rouge. Soon afterwards Seal took part in a CAP joint training mission with the New Orleans unit that was run by David Ferrie. According to John Odom, a fellow CAP member, Seal met Lee Harvey Oswald during this training.

Tosh Plumlee claims that Barry Seal began working for the Central Intelligence Agency in the mid 1950s: "Barry Seal was involved with military intelligence in the early days... Military intelligence was the real game, with the CIA just acting as logistical people. Barry was a peripheral player back then, but he was a CIA 'contract' pilot all the way back to 1956 or 1957."

In 1958 Seal began ferrying weapons to Fidel Castro fighting against the the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba. At the time a section of the CIA was supporting the overthrow of Batista. However, the policy changed soon after Castro gained power and Seal is said to have taken part in air attacks on the new government.

The following year Barry Seal became a CIA pilot in Guatemala. It is also believed that Seal was involved in training Cuban exiles on No-Name Key in Florida and on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. He also ran a couple of companies based in Baton Rouge: Seal Sky Service and Aerial Advertising Associates and had an office in the International Trade Center run by Clay Shaw.

Gerry Hemming claims that Barry Seal was a member of Operation 40 in the early 1960s. Hemming told author, Daniel Hopsicker: "Yeah, Barry was Op 40. He flew in killer teams inside the island (Cuba) before the invasion to take out Fidel."

In December, 1962, Seal joined the 21st Special Forces Group and attended theFort Benning Jump School. In May 1963 he was assigned to company D Special Operations Detachment of the 20th Special Forces Group Airborne. Seal also seems to have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to his wife, Deborah, "Barry Seal flew a getaway plane out of Dallas after JFK was killed."

In 1964 Seal joined the 245th Engineer Battalion based in St. Louis. He left in 1966. Soon afterwards he went to work for Howard Hughes and the TWA Corporation. According to his biographer, Daniel Hopsicker (Barry and the Boys), Seal "becomes first the youngest 707 Captain, and then later the youngest Captain of a 747."

Tosh Plumlee claims that Barry Seal also worked for Ted Shackley and the CIA: "Barry Seal did a lot of damn good stuff in the late 60s. In 67 and 68 he was with Air America in South Vietnam and Laos during Search and Destroy and Special Ops with Ted Shackley's boys. He'd been recruited for Special Ops because of the Cuban thing."

On 1st July, 1972, Barry Seal was arrested in New Orleans and accused of sending C4 explosives to anti-Castro Cubans in Mexico. A DC-4 was seized at theShreveport Regional Airport loaded with almost seven tons of plastic C-4 explosives, 7,000 feet of explosive primer cord and 2,600 electric blasting caps. James Miller, Richmond Harper, Marlon Hagler and Murray Kessler were also arrested with Seal. Kessler's partner, Manny Gambino, was kidnapped around the same time the others were arrested. His corpse was later found in a New Jersey garbage dump.

The DC-4 was owned by James Boy, a known associate of the CIA. Boy's aircraft were later used to fly Oliver North's mercenaries in and out of Honduras. The man who organized the entrapment of Seal and his friends was Cesario Diosdado, an official with the United States Customs.

It took the authorities over two years to bring Barry Seal to trial. When the trial finally got underway in June, 1974, government prosecutors promptly introduced into evidence an automatic weapon that had nothing at all to do with the charges against the defendants. A mistrial was declared and Seal and his fellow defendants were released. According to Pete Brewton (The Mafia, CIA & George Bush), as soon as Seal was freed he "began working full-time for the CIA, travelling back and forth from the United States to Latin America." Daniel Hopsicker claims Seal was now "sheep-dipped" into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as an agent for the Special Operations Group. Seal worked under Lucien Conein, who ran secret missions for the DEA. Egil Krogh, who was employed by Richard Nixon as liaison to the FBI and the DEA, later admitted that he placed Cronein in the Office of Narcotics in the White House.

According to Deborah Seal, her husband became involved in drug smuggling in 1975. On 10th December, 1979, Barry Seal and Steve Planta were arrested inHonduras, after arriving from Ecuador with 40 kilos of cocaine. Newspapers reported that $25 million worth of cocaine was confiscated and the men were charged with having 17 kilos of cocaine in their possession. Seal spent nine months in prison before being released without charge.

While in prison, Barry Seal met William Roger Reeves, a fellow drug smuggler who worked for the Ochoa family of Medellin. In 1981, Reeves, Ochoa's business manager in New Orleans, introduced Seal to Felix Bates. As a result Seal began a close relationship with the Colombians and became part of what became known as the Medellin Cartel. Established in 1980, the Medellin Cartel began when Jorge Ochoa convinced the major cocaine families to contribute $7 million each for the formation of a 2,000-man army in order to destroy the Marxist revolutionary group M-19, that was causing the drug barons problems in Colombia.

Drug barons such as Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar now began working together. It has been estimated that the cartel made up to $60 million per month and its leaders joined the list of the world's richest men. The CIA watched this development with interest. It decided that the Medellin Cartel could be used to help defeat communism throughout Latin America. According to Leslie Cockburn, CIA agent, Felix I. Rodriguez, persuaded the Medellin Cartel to make a $10 million contribution to the Contras.

By 1982 Barry Seal was bringing in drugs to the United States on behalf of theMedellin Cartel. Seal moved his base of operations from Louisiana to Mena, an obscure airport in the secluded mountains of western Arkansas. Seal told friends that he once made $1.5 million on a single cocaine flight. Seal worked directly forSonia Atala, the CIA protected drug baron (Michael Levine, The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic). It is also claimed that Seal's fleet of planes to ferry supplies to Contra camps in Honduras and Costa Rica. His planes also made return trips to airstrips in the mountains of Colombia and Venezuela. According to Roger Morris (Partners in Power): "His well-connected and officially-protected smuggling operation based in Mena accounted for billions in drugs and arms".

Seal also obtained two new multi-million dollar Beech Craft King Air 200s. According to Daniel Hopsicker, these aircraft were purchased by a Phoenix-based corporation that acted as a "front" for John Singlaub. This company also owned Southern Air, a CIA proprietary connected to William Casey, Richard Secord, Felix I. Rodriguez and George H. W. Bush.

Seal also owned a Lear jet. It had previously been owned by Reggie and Bill Whittington. In 1981 the brothers were arrested and charged in Florida with importing 400,000 pounds of marijuana and evading taxes on $73 million. The Lear jet was then passed on to Seal. It was registered as being owned by Intercontinental Holding, a CIA front company in the Cayman Islands that had been established by Paul Helliwell.

In March, 1984, Seal was indicted at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for smuggling Quaaludes and laundering money. Former undercover narcotics investigator Stan Hughes told Daniel Hopsicker (Barry and the Boys) that: "When Barry got busted on the Quaalude thing, and I heard about their being government intervention to save his ass, I didn't believe it at first. But talk to any smuggler, and they'll tell you: they can always buy their way out of a dope deal."

In an attempt to avoid an expected 10 year sentence, Seal made contact withGeorge H. W. Bush. He then appeared before a secret session of Bush's Task Force on Drugs in Washington where he testified that the Sandinistas were directly involved in drug trafficking into the United States. Seal claimed that the Medellin Cartel had made a deal with the Sandinistas, awarding them cuts of drug profits in exchange for the use of an airfield in Managua as a trans-shipment point for narcotics.

This news was welcomed by President Ronald Reagan who wanted to launch an all out war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) was now put under pressure to enlist Seal as an undercover informant with a special emphasis on the "Nicaraguan connection".

Seal agreed to organize a sting operation where he managed to get a photograph of Pablo Escobar helping Nicaraguan soldiers to load 1,200 kilos of cocaine on a C-123 military cargo plane. Soon afterwards Reagan went on television with the photograph to denounce the "Sandinistas as drug smugglers corrupting American youth".

As a result of Seal's cooperation in setting up this sting, the judge in Florida reduced his sentence from ten years to six months probation. The judge praised Seal for his work against the Sandinistas and pointing out that "when an informant puts his life on the line to help the forces of law and order, they deserve just compensation".

Seal also offered to provide information to the DEA implicating federal officials in the Iran-Contra scandal. This included Richard Ben-Veniste, a Watergateprosecutor who played a crucial role in the successful fight to secure the secretRichard Nixon White House tapes. Ben-Veniste represented both Barry Seal andBill Clinton in the early 1980s. Ben-Veniste served as chief counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. However, the authorities were not interested in this information.

In December 1984, Seal was arrested in Louisiana after flying in a cargo of marijuana. After paying a $250,000 bond, Seal was released and returned to drug smuggling. In return Seal provided information that resulted in the US government obtaining 17 criminal convictions. According to Daniel Hopsicker: "Seal told investigators that between March 1984, and August 1985, he made a quarter-million dollars smuggling up to 15,000 kilos of cocaine while working for the DEA, and another $575,000 when the DEA let him keep the money from one shipment."

Barry Seal appeared before Judge Frank Polozola in Baton Rouge on 20th December, 1985. Found guilty of two drug felony convictions, Seal was sentenced to six months supervised probation. A condition of the sentence was that he had to spend every night, from 6.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m., at the Salvation Army halfway house on Baton Rouge's Airline Highway strip. Judge Polozola barred him from carrying a gun or hiring armed guards. Barry Seal told his friends "they made me a clay pigeon".

Barry Seal was asked by his close friend, Rene Martin, if he feared being killed by the Ochoa family. Barry Seal replied that he was not afraid of the Colombians because he had not implicated senior members of the organization. Seal was more worried about his contacts within the US government. This view is supported byLewis Unglesby, Seal’s lawyer. He confirmed that the man Seal was willing to testify against was George H. W. Bush.

On 19th February, 1986, Barry Seal returned to his Salvation Army hostel at 6.00 p.m. As he parked his white Cadillac he was approached by a man carrying a machine-gun. Two quick bursts hit Seal's head and body. One of Seal's friends, Russ Eakin, observed the killing. "I saw Barry get killed from the window of the Belmont hotel coffee shop. The killers were both out of the car, one on either side, but I only saw one shoot, cause Barry saw it coming and just put his head down on the steering column."

Over the next few days the police received information that enabled them to arrest several men for the killing of Barry Seal. This included Miguel Velez, Bernardo Vasquez, Luis Quintero-Cruz, John Cardona, Eliberto Sanchez and Jose Renteria. A seventh, Rafa Cardona, managed to escape back to Colombia. He was murdered later that year. Eliberto Sanchez and John Cardona were deported and never appeared in court for the crime. Nor did Jose Coutin who supplied the weapons for the killing of Seal. However, he was not charged with any crime and instead testified in court against Miguel Velez, Luis Quintero-Cruz and Bernardo Vasquez. According to Leslie Cockburn (Out of Control) Coutin was a CIA asset.

One of those originally arrested, Jose Renteria, took photographs of the dead Seal in the car. When his camera was confiscated by an FBI agent at New Orleans airport, it was opened and the film inside exposed. While being interrogated, Renteria claimed that Jose Coutin was linked to Oliver North. However, this information was never produced in court as Renteria was not charged with the murder and was instead deported to Colombia.

Miguel Velez, Luis Quintero-Cruz and Bernardo Vasquez were found guilty of Barry Seal's murder and sentenced to life terms without parole. The official story was that Jorge Ochoa had murdered Seal in order to stop him testifying at his U.S. trial. Yet Ochoa never stood trial in the U.S. Nor did Seal appear to be afraid of Ochoa. His concern was with George H. W. Bush and the CIA. For example, Barry Seal's secretary, Dandra Seale (no relation) does not believe the Medellin Cartel carried out the assassination. "The CIA people here allowed it to happen. He had a chart, he had dirt on anybody and everybody."

Further evidence comes from Dee Ferdinand. She told Daniel Hopsicker that her father, Al Carone, was a CIA paymaster and a Colonel in Army Intelligence, had been sent to Dallas to pay off Jack Ruby before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Se also claimed that 33 years later Carone performed the same function for the killing of Barry Seal. According to FAA investigator, Rodney Stich, Carone was Oliver North's bagman.

Richard Sharpstein, defense attorney for one of Seal's assassins, Miguel Velez, says: "All three Colombians who went on trial always said they were being directed, after they got into this country, on what to do and where to go by an ‘anonymous gringo,' a US military officer, who they very quickly figured out was Oliver North,"

There was apparently another reason why George Bush wanted Seal dead. According to friends, Seal had a copy of a videotape of a 1985 DEA cocaine sting which had netted George Bush's two sons, George and Jeb, picking up kilos of cocaine at a Florida airport.

After his death, his widow, Debbie Seal, received a $29 million dollar jeopardy assessment from the Internal Revenue Service. It has been claimed that this was a strategy to keep her from talking to reporters. While defending herself from the IRS charge, she discovered a frequently-called phone number in Barry's records. When she dialed it she discovered it belonged to the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was told to "never call it again". Later that day, the DIA phoned her back. "Debbie, you're young, you have a whole life ahead of you, and you have your kids to think about... Don't call anyone in Washington again."

On 5th October, 1986, a Sandinista patrol in Nicaragua shot down a C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras. That night Felix Rodriguez made a telephone call to the office of George H. W. Bush. He told Bush aide, Samuel Watson, that the C-123k aircraft had gone missing. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America veteran, survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. He also provided information that several Cuban-Americans running the operation in El Salvador. This resulted in journalists being able to identify Rafael Quintero, Luis Posada and Felix Rodriguez as the Cuban-Americans mentioned by Hasenfus.

It was the beginning of the Iran-Contra scandal. The C-123K cargo plane that had been shot down had previously been owned by Barry Seal. Eugene Hasenfus, later claimed it was sheer coincidence that a plane once owned by Seal was now part of a secret network led by Oliver North.

Guillermo Novo Sampol, Guillermo Novo was born in Cuba. An opponent of Fidel Castro, Novo moved to the United States where he associated with figures such as Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada. While living in America Novo did a variety of jobs including doorman and used car salesman.

According to Marita Lorenz, Novo became involved with Operation 40, a CIA assassination squad. One member, Frank Sturgis claimed: "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."

Lorenz pointed out that a few days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a group including Novo, Orlando Bosch, Frank Sturgis, Ignacio Novo and Pedro Diaz Lanz, travelled to Dallas. She also claimed that he was at a motel in Dallas when Kennedy's murder was planned.

In 1964 Novo bought a bazooka, a portable rocket launcher, for $35 in an Eighth Avenue shop and rebuilt it.” He planned to use it to kill Che Guevera, who was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly. He fired the shell from the East River waterfront in Long Island, facing the UN building across the river. According to the New York Times the shell “landed in the East River about 200 yards short of the 38-story United Nations Secretariat building, sending up a 15-foot geyser of water.”

FBI Agents Robert Scherrer and Carter Cornick claimed that Novo played a key role in the murder of Roland Masferrer in Miami on 31st October, 1975. Later he worked for General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. The following year Novo was suspected of being involved with Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Herman Ricardo and Freddy Lugo in the Cubana Airlines plane that exploded killing all 73 people aboard. This included all 24 young athletes on Cuba's gold-medal fencing team.

When Posada was arrested he was found with a map of Washington showing the daily route of to work of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean Foreign Minister, who had been assassinated on 21st September, 1976. Novo and Alvin Ross were arrested and found guilty of conspiring to murder Letelier. In 1981 he obtained a retrial and was acquitted on a technicality. The jury had also acquitted Ignacio Novo, Guillermo’s younger brother, of aiding and abetting the conspiracy.

Saul Landau reported at the time: "As the courtroom emptied, the two Novo brothers, Ross, their families and supporters used the hallway to continue their buoyant celebration. Then Guillermo saw me staring at them - in dismay, since I could not understand how the jury could have come to such a verdict in light of the overwhelming evidence presented. Looking at me murderously, he hissed and then, as if continuing his conversation with Ignacio, said in Spanish “Now we can finish off the rest of these communist pigs.”

Novo continued to take part in terrorist attacks on Cuba. In 2000 Novo and three colleagues, Luis Posada, Gaspar Jiménez and Pedro Remón, were arrested and imprisoned after trying to assassinate Fidel Castro at the University of Panama.

In August, 2004, President Mireyas Moscoso of Panama, pardoned Novo, Posada, Jiménez and Remón for their role in attempting to assassinate Castro.

Ignacio Novo Sampol;

 Carlos Alberto de Diego Aday, 

Richard Cain (unconfirmed), 

Richard Cain was born in Chicago on 5th October, 1931. His father, John Cain, worked in a steel mill. His mother was Lydia Scully, the daughter of Ole Scully, who had been murdered on the orders of Angelo Petiti on 17th December, 1928, to stop him testifying in a kidnapping case.

As Michael J. Cain points out: "Their marriage, already a stormy one, was laced with frequent and sometimes violent fights that became intolerable to them both... Finally, after seven years of mutual agony, they separated - and divorced six months later, in 1938."

Lydia Cain did not want to look after her son and in 1939 he was sent to live with his father's parents on their farm in Owosso, Michigan. He attended St. Paul's Catholic School and only spent short-periods of time with his mother in Chicago. The author of The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain (2008) argues: "In Chicago, Richard learned about the streets and about being being tough. Lydia gave him neither love nor direction. He had no curfew and no restrictions of any kind. He learned to shoot pool, wield a knife, and fight as fiercely as someone twice his size."

Lydia was friendly with Mafia mobster, Sam Giancana. It was during his numerous stays in Chicago that Richard Cain got to know Giancana. In July 1947, when he was sixteen years old, he got into trouble with the law. Cain decided to join the United States Army.

After basic training at Fort Knox, and training as a radioman at Fort Hood, Texas, Cain was sent to Japan. Later he was posted to the Virgin Islands where he worked as a supply clerk and a part-time MP. In January 1949 he married his first-wife, who already had a child. He wrote to his mother: "I love the child as much as my wife! True, she made a mistake. Lots of people do. Would it be correct for me to shun her because her husband was a louse?"

Richard Cain was discharged the army on 23rd June, 1950. He took his family to Miami where a Chicago friend introduced him to a private detective named John Buenz, who had been in Burma with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War. Buenz had originally lived in Cuba and was a close friend of Fulgencio Batista, who was living in exile in Fort Lauderdale. Batista was one of Buenz's most important clients. In 1952 Cain was sent into Cuba to monitor government activity for various clients in the Miami area. It was during this period Cain became an expert in installing wiretaps.

In 1953 Cain and his family moved to Bay City, Michigan, where his father lived with his new family. Cain got a job as a bartender. The two men argued and six months later he moved to Chicago where he was employed as a security officer with United Parcel Service (UPS). His work involved credit card fraud, burglaries and hijackings.

Cain made contact with old family friend, Sam Giancana. According to Michael J. Cain it was during this time he became a made member of the Chicago mob. Cain argues that "he participated in arranging numerous burglaries in UPS warehouses and the hijacking of UPS trucks." Despite this criminal behaviour he was promoted to Chief of Security. "As long as he delivered by solving cases, and no one was able to analyze the cases he didn't solve, he could pull it off. UPS became the proving ground for the Dick Cain style of police work."

In 1955 took a six-week course at the Keeler Institute of Polygraph to learn how to operate a polygraph machine, a lie detector. Later that year, Cain applied to join the Chicago Police Department. It had been Giancana's idea as he needed "an inside guy, a bagman to make the payments he regularly gave to the department."

Initially, he was rejected as being too short, at five feet seven inches, with eyesight that tested at 20/200. However, Sam Giancana arranged for the right people to be paid and he managed to grow a full inch and improve his eyesight to the required standard. Cain was accepted into the CPD in May 1956. Soon afterwards he married Rosemary Frazier, a part-time model he met while conducting a vice investigation.

Cain started off as a patrolman but with the help of Giancana, Cain was promoted to the detective bureau. According to the author of The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain (2008): "Giancana matched Dick's $9,000-a-year city salary, plus bonuses...Once he was assigned to the detective bureau, Dick was Giancana's bagman the first week or so of each month, delivering envelopes up and down the chain of command. Captains and above would generally get a personal visit with a very subtle pass of the envelope. Patrolmen, Sergeants and Lieutenants generally had to come and fetch their share, perhaps at a neighborhood bar."

Cain developed a reputation as being a good cop when he was dealing with non-mob-related activities. He often invited the press along to raid on brothels and gambling dens. This resulted in him getting his name and photograph in the newspapers. This usually involved him holding a Thompson sub-machine gun. He also worked closely with Jack Mabley of the Chicago American, who was a crusading columnist who was investigating corruption. This included information that resulted in a crooked judge being sent to prison.

In February 1959, Cain and his partner, Gerry Shallow, arrested a 68 year-old prostitute named Grace Van Scoyk. They confiscated more than $100,000 in cash from the premises. Scoyk eventually got this money back but she claimed that $60,000 had disappeared from her safe deposit box and that Cain had taken her key. Cain denied the charge and he escaped prosecution for this offence.

The following month Harry Figel resisted arrest and was shot dead by Cain and Shallow. According to the report written by the Chief of Detectives, Cain posed as a homosexual but when he realised he had been caught in a trap "he quickly stepped back, drew a pistol from his pocket and fired twice at both Cain and Shallow... after this overt display of viciousness, the Detectives then withdrew their pistols from their holsters and returned the fire." The report added that "the actions of the two investigators truly displays exemplary action and bravery".

Cain later told a different story. He claimed he shot Figel three times in the body and then Shallow shot him in the head when he was defenceless on the ground. The family claimed that Figel had been murdered and during a FBI investigation into the case, they discovered a witness to the killing, Thomas Francis O'Donnell. He claimed that Figel had not opened fire on the police officers. In fact, several friends said he did never carried a gun. Further investigation showed that the gun at the scene of the crime had been stolen from a house in Chicago, one week before Figel was killed. Another investigation by Figel's lawyer, Edward L. Kelly, traced the gun back to Richard Cain.

In a letter sent to United States Attorney Robert Tieken, Kelly pointed out that Cain's expenses greatly exceeded his income: "Cain supports his present wife, his former wife, and children, rents at a hotel and maintains two apartments... Cain appears to be engaged in various activities of prostitution and extortion." The letter was sent to the FBI but it was decided that the matter should be dropped.

Cain left the Sex Bureau and was assigned to help Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard B. Ogilvie with an income tax case against Mafia boss, Anthony Accardo. Ogilvie was impressed with the amount of information he obtained. What he did not know was that this had come from Sam Giancana. As the author of The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain pointed out: "From Giancana's perspective, Dick's job was to provide enough information to convince Ogilvie that he was a crack investigator and along the way to introduce a couple of flaws in the case to ensure that it would be over-turned." This is in fact what happened. Accordo was convicted for income tax evasion but it was overturned on appeal.

In January 1960, Richard Cain and Gerry Shallow were recruited by the Illinois State's Attorney Ben Adamowski via Paul Newey to spy on Irwin Cohen, who worked for Richard Daley as his commissioner of investigations. Cohen was paid a salary of $20,000 per year, plus an operating budget of $100,000. Adamowski was a Republican and he feared Cohen was looking for examples of corruption against fellow members of his party.

Cain was caught installing a camera aimed at the door to Cohen's office, to photograph everyone who came and went. Following an investigation that lasted four months, Cain was forced to resign from the Chicago Police Department. It is believed Paul Newey paid Cain $1500 and was told to leave Chicago in order to let things "cool down".

In May 1960 Cain was appointed to assist in the investigation of police corruption in the city of Springfield, Missouri. His main role was to administer polygraph tests to members of the police department. His report to the city council resulted in the firing of thirteen police officers, including the chief of police.

On his return to Chicago he established Accurate Laboratories. According to his business card he specialized in "investigations, guard services, undercover operatives and polygraph examination". Unofficially, he also provided a wiretap service.

In 1960 Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles decided to work with the Mafia in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own.

In August 1960, Colonel Sheffield Edwards contacted Robert Maheu. As Maheu explained in 1995: "In the winter of 1959-60, however, the CIA still thought it could pull off the invasion (of Cuba). But it thought the odds might be better if the plan went one step further - the murder of Fidel Castro. All the Company needed was someone to do the dirty work for it. Professional killers. A gangland-style hit."

Maheu offered the contract to Johnny Rosell. He in turn arranged for a meeting on 11th October, 1960, between Maheu and two leading mobsters, Santo Trafficante and Sam Giancana. As Maheu pointed out, "both were among the ten most powerful Mafia members" in America. Maheu told the mobsters that the CIA was willing to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed.

On 12th March, 1961, Robert Maheu arranged for CIA operative, Jim O'Connell, to meet Roselli, Trafficante and Giancana at the Fontainebleau Hotel. During the meeting O'Connell gave poison pills and $10,000 to Rosselli to be used against Fidel Castro.

Sam Giancana employed Richard Cain to assassinate Castro. He was fluent in Spanish and had worked in Cuba in 1952. Michael J. Cain argues that his brother saw it as a golden opportunity as "it had all the elements of an activity that could hold his interest: it was dangerous, it involved espionage, and it was potentially lucrative."

During this period Cain met Tony Varona, the head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, an organisation that had been established with help from the CIA. According to Michael J. Cain Varona had originally approached Meyer Lansky to solicit funds for weapons and training. Lansky suggested that Varona should make contact with Sam Giancana "where he found comfort, solace and a quarter of million dollars."

In October 1960 Cain was in Miami interviewing Cuban refugees and preparing reports he shared with CIA station chief William Lohmann back in Chicago. Cain had been introduced to Lohmann by Paul Newey. Lohmann passed this information to the Cuba desk at CIA Headquarters. Cain also told Lohmann that he was on a assignment for Life Magazine and that he expected to be making several trips inside Cuba. In one report Cain told the CIA that: "The Cuban Rebel Air Force of San Antonio de los Banos is now comprised exclusively of Czech (or Russian masquerading as Czech) pilots."

In December 1960 Cain contacted his father to wish him well for the Christmas holidays. According to Mary Ellyn, John Cain's daughter, who overheard the conversation on an extension phone, Richard told his father that he had been to Cuba on a secret mission for the government to assassinate Fidel Castro and that, while he had not succeeded, he had got as far as entering Castro's office, but was unable to find a way to use the botulin tablets. While leaving the grounds his female colleague in the assassination attempt was captured. Cain claimed that she was later executed.

The FBI observed Cain attending a meeting of the Freedom of the Press Committee in Chicago on 28th January, 1961. This was a known communist front organization and it has been suggested that he was on a spying mission for Tony Varona who had "been disillusioned by Castro's turn toward communism."

In July 1961, Cain moved to Mexico City to set up a base of operations for an investigative agency. His first customer was Sears-Roebuck who used his expertise in conducting investigations. During this period he was in regular contact with Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard B. Ogilvie.

Cain also did work for Pierre Kroupensky, a public relations expert. In September 1961 Kroupensky sent him to infiltrate local communist organizations in and around Panama City. On his return to Mexico he became friendly with the head of police in Mexico City. In a letter to his mother, Cain claims that he had been appointed as "technical advisor to the Policia Judicial del Procuradoria". He added that he was only working "on cases involving Americans".

Later in the letter he told his mother he was "doing the same old thing for the Cubanos here". According to his half-brother Michael J. Cain, this meant he was "training Cuban expats in the use of weapons for what they all believed would be the second invasion of Cuba". It is assumed that this training was taking place on behalf of Tony Varona and the Cuban Revolutionary Council.

In a letter sent to his mother in May 1962 Cain was "working steadily with his teaching and private polygraph work, investigations, and wiretaps." The following month Cain was arrested and "charged with carrying a loaded revolver, possession of brass knuckes, possessing Mexican treasury department credentials and violating his visa by working as a private investigator and for the Mexican government." According to the FBI Cain had also been working on tapping the phones at the Czechoslovakian embassy.

Cain was deported from Mexico. On his arrival in the United States he made his way to Houston where he found work administrating polygraph tests and training company personnel in how to use these machines. In September, 1962, he returned to Chicago. On his first day back in the city he had lunch with Sam Giancana and dinner with Richard B. Ogilvie. Soon afterwards, Ogilvie, was elected as sheriff of Cook County. Robert Cooley, a mobster lawyer, claimed in his book, When Corruption Was King (2004), that the Mafia approved Ogilvie's election.

Richard B. Ogilvie appointed Cain as head of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). According to Michael J. Cain, his brother was paid $5,000 a month, several times his SIU salary, by Sam Giancana, the boss of organized crime in Chicago. Anthony Accardo also made a regular contribution and this insured that the Mafia was left alone by the SIU.

In December 1963 thieves stole $250,000 worth of prescription drugs from Zahn Drug Company in Melrose Park, Illinois. The following month Richard Cain led a raid on the Caravelle Motel in Melrose Park where they recovered $42,000 worth of the missing drugs. The press were invited to attend the raid. One of the journalists made further investigations and discovered that the room had been rented by Sergeant John Chaconas of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) who reported directly to Cain.

Daniel P. Ward, the Cook County state's attorney, discovered that just before the raid, Cain had contacted Zahn's insurance and offered to sell them the drugs found at the Caravelle Motel. Ward opened an investigation and subpoenaed grand jury testimony from all members of the SIU who participated in the raid. The grand jury was unable to determine who actually stole the drugs, but they were convinced, that Richard Cain, John Chaconas, Bill Witsman and James Donnelly were lying and had them indicted for perjury. In December, 1964, the four men were convicted of this charge and were all dismissed from the SIU.

In 1965 Cain's great protector, Sam Giancana, was brought before the grand jury. When he refused to answer questions he was jailed for contempt of court. He was released in May 1966 and the following month Cain took him to Mexico City. Soon afterwards the two men relocated to Cuernavaca. Cain would frequently travel back to Chicago to meet with Butch Blasi, who was looking after Giancana's business interests in the city. It was on one of these trips, in December 1967, Cain was arrested by William F. Roemer. Apparently, Joseph D'Argento, who had been convicted of the robbery of the Franklin Park Bank, had told the FBI that he was willing to give evidence against Cain and William Daddano.

Cain claimed during the trial that his indictment had political overtones. At the time, his former boss, Richard B. Ogilvie, was trying to become governor of Illinois. Ogilvie's Democratic opponent ran full-page ads in the Chicago papers, linking him with the Cain case.

On 3rd October, 1968, Cain was convicted of misprison (a failure to notify a law enforcement official that he had knowledge of a felony by others) of felony, aiding and abetting criminals, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to two concurrent four-year terms and fined a total of $13,000.

On 8th July, 1969, Cain returned to court to face perjury charges in the Zahn Drug Company robbery in Melrose Park. When he discovered that Bill Witsman, was willing to provide evidence against him, Cain decided to plead guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison.

Richard Cain was released from prison on 20th October 1971.Cain was nearly blind due to a degenerative eye disease. Sam Giancana informed mob bosses that Cain was "allowed to earn a living" in Chicago. Two days after arriving home Cain contacted William F. Roemer and offered his services as an undercover agent for the FBI to "help them cripple the mob". It was agreed to meet every Wednesday at Cain's apartment. After several months the FBI decided that the information he was provided was of law quality and he received his last payment in February 1972.

During 1972, after his parole had expired, he spent a great deal of time traveling between Chicago and Giancana's villa outside Cuernavaca. He was usually taken by car, by his driver and bodyguard, Michael Gilardi. Michael J. Cain has speculated that his brother was involved in the smuggling of drugs, diamonds and emeralds from Mexico.

Cain also wrote a movie treatment about the Bay of Pigs and was attempting to raise money to have it produced as a movie. Cain and Sam Giancana also opened a casino in Beirut. They also planned to build casinos in Tehran and Malta. In December 1972 Cain spent time with Giancana and Phyllis McGuire in Honolulu.

In January 1973 he contacted William F. Roemer and told him that he had fallen out with Giancana and wanted to make contact with the FBI in Mexico City. The agent reported back to Roemer that Cain "wants to prepare reports of everything he knows about Giancana and his associates" and "that he would be able to furnish sufficient information to get an indictment for Giancana within the year".

In April he was back in Chicago. While he was there Sam DeStefano was murdered. Rumours began to circulate that Cain had killed DeStefano. He returned to Mexico and according to his brother "he seemed to have patched things up with Giancana".

During 1973 Cain had regular meetings with Marshall Caifano. Apparently, he was trying to persuade Caifano to support his plan to take control of gambling on the South Side of Chicago. While in the city he became aware that he was being followed. On 18th December he had a meeting with Thomas A. Foran, the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and asked him if he knew anything about this. Foran told Cain that he was unaware of any pending arrest. The following day he met with William F. Roemer who wanted information about the death of Fiore Bucieri. As a result of the conversation Cain was paid $150 by Roemer.

Cain had dinner with his daughter Kimberly on the night of 19th December. He told her he had a meeting with Marshall Caifano the following day at Rose's Sandwich Shop on Chicago's West Side. Michael Gilardi dropped Cain off at Rose's at 11:40. Gilardi usually stayed with Cain but this time he said he had a doctor's appointment. They talked over lunch and were joined by two others at one point. Califano asked Cain to get something. Cain left Rose's about 12.30 by cab and returned an hour later. Caifano was gone but in his place was two men wearing ski masks who held four customers, a waitress, and Jelly Cozzo, the owner at gunpoint against a back wall.

Cain was ordered to stand against the wall. One of the men, who was holding a sawed-off shotgun, shot him through the bottom of his chin. The blast tore away the right side of his face. The man then searched Cain and removed a slip of paper before leaving in the waiting car.

Apparently, Sam Giancana was upset when he heard about Cain's death. He told friends he was like a son to him. However, he had been in no position to protect him from the mafia. In his book, The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain (2008), Michael J. Cain argues that one of the gunman was Butch Petrocelli, who was himself murdered six months later. His mouth and nose was covered with duct tape, to keep him from screaming while his face was melted with a blowtorch. The other gunman is believed to be Harry Aleman.

In their book, Double Cross (1992), Charles and Sam Giancana (Sam's half-brother and nephew) claim that Cain, along with Charlie Nicoletti, were the two gunman who killed President John F. Kennedy. The authors claim that it was Cain, rather than Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired from the 6th Floor of the Texas Book Depository.

In September 1996, Eric Hamburg, a congressional staff assistant who was involved in the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act gave evidence in Los Angeles. Hamburg claimed that he had evidence that Cain worked with Dave Yarras and Lenny Patrick in the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas. This statement was based on information obtained from Fabin Escalante of the Cuban Secret Service and Claudia Furiati, a Brazilian journalist.

Later that year Peter Dale Scott suggested that Cain was implicated in the assassination as a result of his links with Johnny Roselli and John Martino. "Richard Cain, John Roselli, and John Martino were all close, through both their mob connections and their work for the CIA. All three of them later professed knowledge about the assassination. In 1963 the CIA recruited Richard Cain to spy on a Cuban in Chicago, Paulino Sierra, whom the CIA rightly suspected was recruiting Cuban exiles they mistrusted for an operation sponsored by Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile John Martino (who before he died claimed knowledge of a plot involving Oswald) was involved with Miami CIA elements in an operation designed to frustrate Kennedy's Soviet policies, and possibly to set up the Rosselli "turn-around" story, blaming the Kennedy assassination on a team recruited to kill Castro."

In 2008 Michael J. Cain, published his book, The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain. He argues that he has investigated the claim that his brother took part in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He quotes G. Robert Blakey, the former chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), as saying: "Michael, I had subpoena powers, I talked to dozens, hundreds of witnesses. Not one of them tried to lay this at your brother's feet."

Cain also interviewed Jim Malcotte, who worked in the sheriff's department. "He (Malcotte) told me that on November 22, 1963, he was in the grand jury room at the Cook County Courthouse testifying that one Eddie Lee Jones had shot him during an undercover drug buy. While Malcotte was testifying, a sheriff's deputy burst into the room and announced that the president had been shot. Malcotte remembered the event clearly because of the gravity of the news and the fact that it was unprecedented to have testimony interrupted in the grand jury room. Malcotte also remembered that his boss, Dick Cain, was waiting in the hallway to testify after him."

Arsenio Felipe de Diego Aday, 

Tosh Plumlee 

Robert Tosh Plumlee was born in 1937. He joined the United States Army in April 1954 and was assigned to the Texas 49th Armored Division. Later he was transferred to Dallas where he joined the 4th Army Reserve Military Intelligence Unit.

After leaving the army Plumlee worked as an aircraft mechanic before obtaining his pilot's license in 1956. Soon afterwards he began work as a pilot for clandestine CIA flights. This included working for William Harvey, Tracy Barnes and Rip Robertson. Plumlee also transported arms to Cuba before Castro took power. Plumlee was also associated with Operation 40.

In 1962 Plumlee was assigned to Task Force W which operated at the time from the JM/WAVE station in Miami. Plumlee claimed that in November, 1963, he was a co-pilot on a top secret flight supported by the CIA. Plumlee's flight left Florida on 21st November and stopped in New Orleans and Houston before reaching Dallas in the early morning hours of 22nd November. On board was Johnny Roselli. Plumlee testified that their assignment was to stop the planned assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Plumlee also worked as an undercover operative and contract pilot for the federal government during the "Drug War" during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

In 1977 Plumlee testified before Frank Church and his Select Committee on Intelligence Activities. He also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1990 and 1991.

and Virgilio Gonzalez. 

Virgilio (Villo) Gonzalez was born in Cuba. He worked as a driver for Felipe Vidal Santiago. Both Gonzalez and Santiago moved to Miami after Fidel Castro gained power in 1959.

Gonzalez became an active member of the anti-Castro Cuban movement in the United States and associated with the Interpen (Intercontinental Penetration Force) group.

In the winter of 1962 Eddie Bayo claimed that two officers in the Red Army based in Cuba wanted to defect to the United States. Bayo added that these men wanted to pass on details about atomic warheads and missiles that were still in Cuba despite the agreement that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Bayo's story was eventually taken up by several members of the anti-Castro community including Nathaniel Weyl, William Pawley, Gerry P. Hemming, John Martino, Felipe Vidal Santiago and Frank Sturgis. Pawley became convinced that it was vitally important to help get these Soviet officers out of Cuba.

William Pawley contacted Ted Shackley at JM WAVE. Shackley decided to help Pawley organize what became known as Operation Tilt. He also assigned Rip Robertson, a fellow member of the CIA in Miami, to help with the operation. David Sanchez Morales, another CIA agent, also became involved in this attempt to bring out these two Soviet officers.

In June, 1963, a small group, including Gonzalez, William Pawley, Eddie Bayo, Eugenio Martinez, Rip Robertson, John Martino, and Richard Billings, a journalist working for Life Magazine, secretly arrived in Cuba. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to find these Soviet officers and they were forced to return to Miami. Bayo remained behind and it was rumoured that he had been captured and executed. However, his death was never reported in the Cuban press.

Some researchers believe Gonzalez was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. One source claims that Gonzalez was the gunman in the Dal-Tex building and Eugenio Martinez was his spotter.

On 17th June, 1972, Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord were arrested while removing electronic devices from the Democratic Party campaign offices in an apartment block called Watergate. The phone number of E.Howard Hunt was found in address books of the burglars. Reporters were now able to link the break-in to the White House. Bob Woodward, a reporter working for the Washington Post was told by a friend who was employed by the government, that senior aides of President Richard Nixon, had paid the burglars to obtain information about its political opponents.

In January, 1973, Gonzalez, Frank Sturgis, E.Howard Hunt, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker, Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping.

A reader adds this correction: 

"The fellow w/ moustache in the front right is William Houston Seymour, an Oswald look-alike; 

William Seymour was born in Fort Benton, Montana. Seymour spent three and a half years in the United States Navy in the Asiatic Pacific region.

Seymour was a member of Interpen (Intercontinental Penetration Force) that was established in 1961 by Gerry P. Hemming. Other members included Loran Hall, Roy Hargraves, Lawrence Howard, Steve Wilson, Howard K. Davis, Edwin Collins, Dick Whatley, James Arthur Lewis, Dennis Harber, Ramigo Arce, Ronald Augustinovich, Joe Garman, Edmund Kolby, Ralph Schlafter, Bill Dempsey, Manuel Aguilar and Oscar Del Pinto.

This group of experienced soldiers were involved in training members of the anti-Castro groups funded by the Central Intelligence Agency in Florida in the early 1960s. When the government began to crack down on raids from Florida in 1962, Interpen set up a new training camp in New Orleans. The group carried out a series of raids on Cuba in an attempt to undermine the government of Fidel Castro. This involved a plan to create a war by simulating an attack on Guantanamo Naval Base.

During this period Seymour travelled around America with Loran Hall and Lawrence Howard. Michael Rohde, a lawyer who met them during this period, described Hall and Seymour as "two extremely dangerous, committed individuals."

On 25th September, 1963, a Cuban exile, Silvia Odio had a visit from three men who claimed they were from New Orleans. Two of the men, Leopoldo and Angelo, said they were members of the Junta Revolucionaria. The third man, Leon, was introduced as an American sympathizer who was willing to take part in the assassination of Fidel Castro. After she told them that she was unwilling to get involved in any criminal activity, the three men left.

Silvia Odio discovered after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that Leon was Lee Harvey Oswald. Odio gave evidence to the Warren Commission and one of its lawyers commented: "Silvia Odio was checked out thoroughly... The evidence is unanimously favorable... Odio is the most significant witness linking Oswald to the anti-Castro Cubans."

On 16th September, 1964, FBI agent Leon Brown interviewed Loran Hall on behalf of the Warren Commission. Brown claims that Hall admitted that he, Lawrence Howard and William Seymour made a visit to a woman who could have been Silvia Odio. However, when Hall was re-interviewed on 20th September and was shown a photograph of Odio, he claimed she was not the woman he met in New Orleans.

The FBI interviewed Silvia Odio again on 1st October, 1964. They showed her photographs of William Seymour, Loran Hall,Lawrence Howard and Celio Castro Alga. She claimed that "none of these individuals were identical with the three persons... who had come to her apartment in Dallas in the last week of September, 1963." Her sister, Annie Odio, who was also in the apartment at the time, also stated that "none of the photographs appeared similar to the three individuals in her recollection."

Seymour was also interviewed by the FBI and they established that he had been working for Beach Welding and Supplies Company, Miami Beach, Florida at the time when it was suggested that he visited Silvia Odio.

The author, Anthony Summers, suggests that the visit had "been a deliberate ploy to link Junta Revolucionaria, a left-wing exile group, with the assassination". However, G. Robert Blakey interviewed Seymour, Loran Hall and Lawrence Howard and claims that they did not visit Silvia Odio. Seymour told researcher, Paris Flammonde, that he had been in Miami when John F. Kennedy was killed.

next to him, hiding his face, is Frank Sturgis, one of the hobos caught in a train yard not far from the Grassy Knoll, and one of the Watergate burglars.

Frank Fiorini (Sturgis) was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on 9th December, 1924. Six years later his family moved to Philadelphia. In 1942 Sturgis joined the United States Marines and during the Second World War served in the Pacific.

After the war Sturgis attended the Virginia Polytechnic Institute before joining the Norfolk Police Department. In 1948 he became the manager of the Whitehorse Tavern. He also served in the U.S. Army (1950-52). This was followed by a spell as the owner-manager of Top Hat Nightclub in Virginia Beach.

In 1956 Sturgis moved to Cuba. He also spent time in Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras. In 1958 he made contact with the Central Intelligence Agency at the US Consulate in Santiago. Over the next few years he worked as an undercover agent for the agency. His control officer was Sam Jenis.

Sturgis also became involved in gunrunning to Cuba. On 30th July, 1958, Sturgis was arrested for illegal possession of arms. However, he was released without charge. There is some evidence that in 1959 Sturgis had contact with Lewis McWillie, the manager of the Tropicana Casino.

After Fidel Castro gained control of Cuba, Sturgis formed the Anti-Communist Brigade. In his book, Counter-Revolutionary Agent, Hans Tanner claims that the organization was "being financed by dispossessed hotel and gambling owners" who operated under Fulgencio Batista.

According to a declassified FBI document Sturgis participated in anti-Castro leaflet-dropping raid over Cuba with Pedro Diaz Lanz, former chief of Cuban Air Force in October 1959.

Sturgis became involved with Marita Lorenz, who was having an affair with Fidel Castro. In January 1960, Sturgis and Lorenz took part in a failed attempt to poison Castro. It is also believed that Sturgis was involved in helping the CIA organize the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Sturgis was also a member of Operation 40. He later explained: "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. Actually, they were operating out of Mexico, too."

On 19th December 1961, the Border Patrol in Miami reported that Sturgis/Fiorini was involved in a CIA operation that was trying to overthroe Fidel Castro. An investigation carried out by the FBI suggested the operation was being financed by Sergio Rojas.

Alexander Irwin Rorke, who was closely associated with Sturgis/Fiorini was interviewed by the FBI on 22nd June 1962. According to the agent: "In connection with the flights over Cuba, Rorke stated that Fiorini does not pilot the planes and acts for the most part as a co-pilot. The planes are rented in the United States and flown to bases outside the United States such as the Bahamas. In making the contract for the rental of the planes, usually someone other than Fiorini signs the contract, although Fiorini is in contact with local CIA agents in Miami relative to the details of the flight. Rorke stated that Fiorini has instructions that on these flights, if he is arrested or stopped, he is to notify the officers that they should telephone a number which is the number of the CIA office in the Miami area. Fiorini has also been informed, according to Rorke, that if anyone arrests him, CIA will get him out."

According to the FBI agent: "Rorke went on to argue that he could not understand why the Bureau was interested now in the activities of Fiorini as all of Fiorini’s actions are fully known to CIA in Miami and there should be a record of his activities on file with CIA in Washington, D.C. Rorke stated he knows for a fact that Fiorini has not done anything on his own and that whatever he has done in the past he has done on instructions from CIA... Rorke advised that in the event Fiorini would be arrested for his anti-Castro activities, he, Rorke, having good connections with a well-known newspaper chain, will make plenty of trouble for those involved."

Alexander Irwin Rorke claimed that their contact man was "Commander Anderson of the United States Navy, who is assigned to CIA overt office in New York". This claim is supported by a declassified CIA memo's from Anderson to Robert Trumbull Crowley on 9th January 1961: "Alex Rorke phoned from Miami to report that personnel in Varona group and other groups in process joining Dr. Bosch - Commander (of) Diego Party. According (to) Rorke, Frank Fiorini has been power behind scene."

In an article published in the Florida Sun Sentinel on 4th December, 1963, Jim Buchanan claimed that Sturgis had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Miami shortly before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Buchanan claimed that Oswald had tried to infiltrate the Anti-Communist Brigade. When he was questioned by the FBI about this story, Sturgis claimed that Buchanan had misquoted him regarding his comments about Oswald.

Another CIA document that was declassified in 1993 makes it clear that Fiorini/Sturgis was a paid operative of the agency. The document dated 9th February, 1975, has the subject heading: "Telephone Call from John Dean". The memo is signed JRS and is for the attention of General Vernon Walters, Deputy Director of the CIA at that time. The memo includes the following: "I discussed these matters with Bill Colby, who indicated that Sturgis has not been on the payroll for a number of years and that whatever his allegations about the Chilean Embassy, the Agency has no connection at all."

According to a memo sent by L. Patrick Gray, Director of the FBI, to H. R. Haldeman in 1972: "Sources in Miami say he (Sturgis) is now associated with organized crime activities". In his book, Assassination of JFK (1977), Bernard Fensterwald claims that Sturgis was heavily involved with the Mafia, particularly with Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky in Florida.

On 17th June, 1972, Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barkerand James W. McCord were arrested while removing electronic devices from the Democratic Party campaign offices in an apartment block called Watergate. The phone number of E.Howard Hunt was found in address books of the burglars. Reporters were now able to link the break-in to the White House. Bob Woodward, a reporter working for the Washington Post was told by a friend who was employed by the government, that senior aides of President Richard Nixon, had paid the burglars to obtain information about its political opponents.

On 15th January, 1973, Sturgis, E.Howard Hunt, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Bernard L. Barker, Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping and sentenced to a one-to-four year sentence.

Sturgis served his time in Danbury Prison. While in prison Sturgis gave an interview to the journalist Andrew St. George. He told St. George: "I will never leave this jail alive if what we discussed about Watergate does not remain a secret between us. If you attempt to publish what I've told you, I am a dead man."

Sturgis was released from prison on appeal bond in January 1974. The article by Andrew St. George was published in True Magazine seven months later. Sturgis claims that the Watergate burglars had been instructed to find a particular document in the Democratic Party offices. This was a "secret memorandum from the Castro government" that included details of CIA covert actions. Sturgis said "that the Castro government suspected the CIA did not tell the whole truth about this operations even to American political leaders".

After leaving prison Sturgis worked as a salesman in Miami for the Heavy Equipment Company (1974), Dodge Repairs (1974-75), Continental Egg Corporation (1975) and Miami Book Company (1975-76).

In 1976 Sturgis gave a series of interviews where he claimed that the assassination of John F. Kennedy had been organized by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. According to Sturgis, Lee Harvey Oswald had been working in America as a Cuban agent.

In November, 1977, Marita Lorenz gave an interview to the New York Daily News in which she claimed that a group called Operation 40, that included Sturgis and Lee Harvey Oswald, were involved in a conspiracy to kill both John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro.

In August, 1978, Victor Marchetti published an article about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in the liberty Lobby newspaper, Spotlight. In the article Marchetti argued that the House Special Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) had obtained a 1966 CIA memo that revealed Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt and Gerry Patrick Hemming had been involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. Marchetti's article also included a story that Marita Lorenz had provided information on this plot. Later that month Joseph Trento and Jacquie Powers wrote a similar story for the Sunday News Journal.

The HSCA did not publish this CIA memo linking its agents to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Hunt now decided to take legal action against the Liberty Lobby and in December, 1981, he was awarded $650,000 in damages. Liberty Lobby appealed to the United States Court of Appeals. It was claimed that Hunt's attorney, Ellis Rubin, had offered a clearly erroneous instruction as to the law of defamation. The three-judge panel agreed and the case was retried. This time Mark Lane defended the Liberty Lobby against Hunt's action.

Lane eventually discovered Marchetti’s sources. The main source was William Corson. It also emerged that Marchetti had also consulted James Angleton and Alan J. Weberman before publishing the article. As a result of obtaining of getting depositions from David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, G. Gordon Liddy, Stansfield Turner and Marita Lorenz, plus a skillful cross-examination by Lane of E. Howard Hunt, the jury decided in January, 1995, that Marchetti had not been guilty of libel when he suggested that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated by people working for the CIA.

Marita Lorenz also testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations where she claimed that Sturgis had been one of the gunmen who fired on John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Sturgis testified that he had been engaged in various "adventures" relating to Cuba which he believed to have been organized and financed by the CIA.

Sturgis denied that he had been involved in the assassination of Kennedy. Sturgis testified that he was in Miami throughout the day of the assassination, and his testimony was supported by that of his wife and a nephew of his wife. The committee dismissed Lorenz's testimony, as they were unable to find any other evidence to support it.

Frank Sturgis died on 4th December, 1993.

In January 2004, E. Howard Hunt gave a taped interview with his son, Saint John Hunt, claiming that Lyndon Baines Johnson was the instigator of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and that it was organised by Sturgis, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips and David Sanchez Morales.

The man in the front left 'is Felix Rodriguez, one of the CIA's most vicious assassins, whose long list of murders includes that of Che Guevara in Bolivia...'"

Félix Ismael Rodríguez was born into a wealthy, landowning family, in Cuba, in 1941. His uncle, José Antonio Mendigutia Silvera, was minister of public works and close collaborator of Fulgencio Batista. Rodriguez fled the country soon after Fidel Castro gained power in 1959. Most of his family, including his father and two of his brothers, were either executed or disappeared within the first months of the new dictator’s regime.

Rodriguez went to live in the United States. He attended college in Pennsylvania and hoped to become an engineer. However, he soon became involved in anti-Castro activities.

At a meeting on 18th January, 1960, a group of CIA officials, including David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Jack Esterline, and Frank Bender, established Operation 40. It obtained this name because originally there were 40 agents involved in the operation. Rodriguez was one of the Cubans who joined this group.

One member, Frank Sturgis claimed: "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."

In 1961 Rodriguez joined the CIA-backed Brigade 2506 and volunteered to assassinate Fidel Castro. He was smuggled into Cuba a few weeks before the Bay of Pigs invasion but his mission was unsuccessful.

In 1963 Manuel Artime and the MRP established four bases in Costa Rica and Nicaragua in preparation for another exile military campaign against Castro. The operation was given support by Ted Shackley, head of the JM/WAVE station in Florida. Rodriguez became the project's communications chief. During this period Rodriguez was involved in a large number of covert anti-Castro operations in an attempt to prepare the way to a second invasion.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Rodriguez volunteered to parachute into Cuba in order to identify Russian missile sites. The operation was called off when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev negotiated an end to the dispute.

In 1967 David Morales recruited him to train and head a team that would attempt to catch Che Guevara in Bolivia. Guevara was attempting to persuade the tin-miners living in poverty to join his revolutionary army. When Guevara was captured, it was Rodriguez who interrogated him before he ordered his execution. Rodriguez still possesses Guevara’s Rolex watch that he took as a trophy.

Rodriguez became an U.S. citizen in 1969. Soon afterwards he enlisted in the US Army. During the Vietnam War he flew over 300 helicopter sorties and was shot down five times. In 1971 Rodriguez helped train Provincial Reconnaissance Units for Operation Phoenix. Rodriguez won the Intelligence Star for Valor from the CIA and nine Crosses for Gallantry from the Republic of South Vietnam.

In the 1980s Rodriguez ran the Contra supply depot in El Salvador, and served as the bagman in the CIA's deal with Medellin. He met regularly with Oliver North and at the height of the Contra operations met Ronald Reagan and George Bush at the White House. He flew over 100 combat missions in Central America, and captured the Cuban backed military commander Nidia Diaz.

In 1987 he testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics. During one session John Kerry accused him of a soliciting a $10 million donation from the Colombian cocaine cartel. The story had originally come Ramon Milian Rodriguez, a convicted money launderer for Columbia.

Rodriguez published his autobiography, Shadow Warrior: The CIA Hero of a Hundred Unknown Battles (co-authored with John Weisman) in 1989. In the book he writes about his relationship with the CIA and the anti-Castro resistance. He also describes his adventures in Bolivia, Vietnam, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

After his retirement Rodriguez became a leader in the Cuban American community in Florida and is currently president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association. During the 2004 presidential election Rodriguez campaigned strongly for George Bush. He admitted his main motivation was “to get the real word out about John Kerry.” Others accused him of seeking revenge against Kerry for what happened in 1987.

"Black Metal...?"

Holy sh*t, they arrested Varg...? Again?

For those not familiar.... Well, all you really need to know about Norwegian Black Metal band Burzum and the Norwegian Black Metal scene is that some of their songs are actually written and performed in the Black Tongue of Mördor.

Which I shall not utter here.

They also went through a Burning-down-churches and murder phase. But that was in the 1990s.

These people are hardcore Wotanists and Christ haters and I have no doubt the endorse Brevik's alleged political philosophy (whatever that turns out to be), but I highly doubt they were in France to carry out a terrorist outrage.

More likely to be a gig.

Which is nearly worse, believe me....

Woolwich: The Naive Fools from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

Oh, look! The English Nazis have gone into strategic alliance with the Jewish Defence League (JDL) and the followers of Meyer Kehane..!

This'll go well for them, I'm sure....

Royal Baby: Some Numbers.

Did you notice yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of English Defence Leaguer, Knight Templar and Freemason Anders Brevik's Norwegian NATO bloodletting massacre? 22/7.

Woolwich: The Naive Fools from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

Oh, look! The English Nazis have gone into strategic alliance with the Jewish Defence League (JDL) and the followers of Meyer Kehane..!

This'll go well for them, I'm sure....

2 + 7 = 9

2 + 2 + 7 = 11

Andy Murray won the New York Grand Slam on 9/11.

You Know You're Right - 9/11 from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

Take a Deep Breath.

Look at it Again.

He won Wimbledon on 7/7, 77 years after the last British male champion, with the last female champion in 1977, the Royal Jubilee.

You Know You're Right - 7/7 from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

007 was the number Magician and spy to Elizabeth I Dr John Dee assigned to himself as his code name.

They are up to something MASSIVE....

Lamas (aka Lugjnasadh) is coming up - most important Magickal / occult / satanic holiday of the year after Beltane.

The start of the Harvest....

And more.

'Astronomical' Lughnasadh

In the cross-quarter reckoning of former NASA scientist Robert Gillespie, Northern Lughnasadh occurs when the Sun's ecliptic longitude/Earth's heliocentric longitude reaches 135 degrees. In 2013 this will occur at 8:21 UTC on August 7.

This will blow your mind....

Originally more extensive open marsh, historically drained by means of open drainage ditches. The marsh is former Lammas Land: the land was divided into strips which were cultivated to grow hay for winter feed. Parishioners had ancient rights to graze cattle and horses between 1 August (after the hay harvest) and 25 March.

In the 19th century the marsh was polluted by sewage from the extensive new residential developments in Walthamstow and Leyton.

By the 19th century the character of the marsh changed. Many acres were bought and built on by railway, water and gas companies. In the early 1890s the East London Waterworks Company erected fences which angered local people. On Lammas Day 1892 a large demonstration took place on the marsh and the fences were taken down. The locals set up the Leyton Lammas Lands Defence Committee and successfully challenged the water company in court. This led to the Leyton Urban District Council Act 1904 which provided that the marsh would be kept as an open space, in return for local people giving up Lammas rights.

The fields at Marsh Lane did not come under this agreement and remain as Lammas land.

After World War II the marsh was used to dump rubble from The Blitz. Towards the end of the conflict, a V-2 rocket landed and exploded on the marsh; the crater is still visible seven decades later.

In 1971 Lee Valley Regional Park Authority acquired much of the land by compulsory purchase. They acquired the Essex Filter Beds (1986, now the WaterWorks Nature Reserve) and the Middlesex Filter Beds (1988, now the Middlesex Filter Beds Nature Reserve), both on the south side of Lea Bridge Road and formerly part of the marsh. The Lee Valley Ice Centre and the Lee Valley Riding Centre were built approximately 30 and 40 years ago respectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyton_Marshes#History

"Restored Leyton Marsh after removal of olympic games basketball practice court"

"In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1.3.19) it is observed of Juliet, "Come Lammas Eve at night shall she [Juliet] be fourteen." 

Since Juliet was born Lammas eve, she came before the harvest festival, which is significant since her life ended before she could reap what she had sown and enjoy the bounty of the harvest, in this case full consummation and enjoyment of her love with Romeo."

(The August 1st bit is a lie, by the way - it's 8/8.)

August 8 from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

Michaelmas Eve - Second most Magickally significant night of the year after Beltane.

88 also = "Heil Hitler"; as in "Combat 88" and NeoNazi Tattoos of mutual recognition.

In Irish mythology, the Lughnasadh festival is said to have been begun by the god Lugh (modern spelling: Lú) as a funeral feast and sporting competition in commemoration of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. 

The first location of the Áenach Tailteann gathering was at Tailtin, between Navan and Kells. 

Historically, the Áenach Tailteann was a time for contests of strength and skill and a favoured time for contracting marriages and winter lodgings. 

A peace was declared at the festival, and religious celebrations were held. The festival survived as the Taillten Fair, and was revived for a period in the 20th century as the Telltown Games.

A similar Lughnasadh festival was held at Carmun (the exact location of which is under dispute). Carmun is also believed to have been a goddess of the Celts, perhaps one with a similar tale as Tailtiu.

In 1962 The Festival of Lughnasa, a study of Lughnasadh by folklorist Máire MacNeill, was published. MacNeill drew on medieval writings and on surveys and studies from throughout Ireland and Britain. Her conclusion was that the evidence testified to an ancient Celtic festival on 1 August that involved the following:

"[A] solemn cutting of the first of the corn of which an offering would be made to the deity by bringing it up to a high place and burying it; 

a meal of the new food and of bilberries of which everyone must partake; a sacrifice of a sacred bull, a feast of its flesh, with some ceremony involving its hide, and its replacement by a young bull; 

a ritual dance-play perhaps telling of a struggle for a goddess and a ritual fight; an installation of a head on top of the hill and a triumphing over it by an actor impersonating Lugh; 

another play representing the confinement by Lugh of the monster blight or famine; a three-day celebration presided over by the brilliant young god or his human representative. 

Finally, a ceremony indicating that the interregnum was over, and the chief god in his right place again."