JFK The Enduring Secret

In this fourth installment of our miniseries, Ground Zero: JM WAVE and the Cuban Question (Episode 3A), we explore how the secret war against Fidel Castro dramatically escalated in the summer and autumn of 1963 while Operation Tilt unraveled. The CIA partnered with the U.S. military to train a formidable exile commando force, placing Army Captain Bradley Ayers and explosives expert Major Edward Roderick under civilian cover at Ledbury Lodge on Elliott Key to prepare strike teams for sabotage against Cuban oil refineries, power plants, and sugar mills. Military bases across the country—including Fort Stewart, Camp Mackall, and Eglin Air Force Base—provided live-fire, airborne, and survival training, while station chief Ted Shackley and paramilitary head David Sanchez Morales operated their own deniable strike unit, the Commandos Mambises, launching raids from Central America off the CIA mother ship Rex. At the exact same time, federal authorities cracked down ruthlessly on non-sanctioned exile groups, engaging in high-speed boat chases through South Florida canals, raiding William McLaney’s Lake Pontchartrain weapons cache in Louisiana, and arresting raiders who were attempting to relocate operations abroad.
We trace how JM WAVE’s psychological warfare branch, directed by case officer George Joannides, financed and guided the militant student group DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil) under code name AMSPELL. In August 1963, 23-year-old unemployed ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald walked into Casa Roca on Decatur Street in New Orleans, offering to help DRE delegate Carlos Bringuier train anti-Castro guerrillas before turning around days later to distribute Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets on Canal Street. Following a street confrontation, their police arrest, and a heated live debate on WDSU radio, DRE military chief Isidro "Chilo" Borja confirmed that a comprehensive intelligence file on Oswald was dispatched straight to their CIA contacts at JM WAVE in Miami. We also follow the trail connecting Oswald's Spanish language instructor, Ernesto Rodriguez, to his brother Emilio Rodriguez—Tony Sforza’s partner in the Havana stay-behind network and chief of the AMOT intelligence service at JM Wave.—revealing direct pipelines linking the accused assassin to the CIA’s Miami nerve center.
We dissect the delicate, high-stakes diplomatic dialogue unfolding simultaneously behind the scenes between Washington and Havana. Spearheaded by ABC News journalist Lisa Howard and U.S. diplomat William Attwood, secret bilateral talks were initiated in September 1963 in the corner of a crowded cocktail party inside Howard’s Manhattan apartment with Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga. As Attwood established communication with Castro’s personal physician, Dr. René Vallejo, Castro offered to send a private plane to Key West for face-to-face negotiations that excluded Che Guevara, an initiative President Kennedy personally approved in the Oval Office under strict conditions of plausible deniability. Yet, this fragile peace overture stood in stark, dangerous contrast to CIA covert plots: just hours after Castro issued a public warning at the Brazilian embassy that U.S. leaders aiding terrorist assassination plots "themselves will not be safe," CIA headquarters cabled instructions to approach Cuban Major Rolando Cubela (code name AMLASH) as a chief coup conspirator.
Finally, we examine the fateful autumn weeks when these conflicting tracks collided with catastrophic consequences. In late October 1963, CIA Special Affairs Staff chief Desmond Fitzgerald flew to Paris, presenting himself to Cubela as Robert F. Kennedy’s personal representative while Cubela requested a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights to assassinate Castro. Meanwhile in Miami, anti-Castro exiles caught wind of rumors regarding a secret White House accommodation with Moscow for a "Tito-type" communist regime, transforming exile grief and disillusionment into personal, burning fury against President Kennedy. As operatives like Felipe Vidal Santiago and CIA-connected trainers reported that street-level Cubans openly branded JFK a traitor who deserved to be killed, and as French journalist Jean Daniel carried Kennedy’s private message to Havana, the stage was set for President Kennedy’s arrival in Miami on November 18, just four days before Dallas.

In this third installment of our miniseries, Ground Zero: JM WAVE and the Cuban Question, we examine the dangerous two-track contradiction of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba during the summer and autumn of 1963. While one hand of the United States government was quietly exploring diplomatic backchannels to Fidel Castro through UN diplomats and ABC News journalist Lisa Howard, the other hand was funding, arming, and launching anti-Castro exile commandos onto Cuban beaches under the secret war run out of the CIA’s Miami station. We explore how this jarring duality left the Cuban exile community feeling deeply double-crossed—echoing the bitter aftermath of the Bay of Pigs—as they watched federal agencies arrest non-sanctioned exile raiders on the water while state-backed operations received secret funding, fueling a mounting exile rage aimed directly at President John F. Kennedy.
We go inside the secretive world of "autonomous operations," where Washington approved U.S.-funded exile raids mounted strictly outside American territory—most notably Manuel Artime’s Robert F. Kennedy-backed AMWORLD project in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and Manuel Ray’s JURE organization. We expose the intense paranoia and bureaucratic infighting inside JM WAVE, detailing how station chief Ted Shackley ("The Blonde Ghost") dismissed AMWORLD as an exercise in futility, while fears that JURE was spying on the Miami station led to shocking directives authorizing exile boat crews to fire on rival exile vessels at sea.
Finally, we reconstruct the tragic narrative of Operation Tilt—the June 1963 Pawley-Martino raid. We trace how former Havana casino technician John Martino and exile Eddie Bayo convinced wealthy benefactor William Pawley, Life Magazine, and Senate investigators that Soviet military officers in Cuba’s Oriente Province were ready to defect with photos proving nuclear missiles remained on the island. We reveal how the CIA’s Miami station secretly backed the "private" expedition with weapons, a mother ship, a PBY flying boat, and CIA operatives David Sanchez Morales and Rip Robertson—culminating in a fateful night at Hogsty Reef in the Bahamas where ten Cuban exiles boarded a 21-foot motor launch, slipped into Cuban waters, and vanished forever, leaving behind an operation later written off as a con game and ten families with no answers.

I made some minor additions, deletions, and edits to Episode 360 and I also added a little something from President Kennedy himself at the end of the episode. Please remove your previous download (if it occurred before 1PM EST October 25, 2026 and replace it with the latest available download from your podcast provider. You can be sure you have the updated version of the podcast by checking for the Kennedy speech excerpt placed near the end of the podcast. My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you!  Jeff

I owe many of you a sincere and overdue apology. Over the years, I have always strived to be prompt in answering every single email I receive from listeners of JFK: The Enduring Secret. However, over the past 10 to 11 months, balancing a full-time consulting role alongside researching and producing the podcast during off-hours created an unintended bottleneck, leaving many of your thoughtful messages temporarily unanswered.
Following the overwhelming response and feedback during our Jack Ruby miniseries, I decided to conduct a thorough audit of my inbox. To my complete surprise and dismay, I realized just how many emails had accidentally slipped through the cracks during busy stretches. I want to assure you that hearing from you is never a burden or an obligation—it is a genuine joy, a source of intellectual stimulation, and something I deeply respect.
I am currently working my way through the backlog, including messages dating back into last year, and I promise that every single email will receive a personal reply in the coming days. If you sent me a message that has not yet received a response, please feel free to re-send it—that way, it will jump right to the top of my inbox so I can get back to you even faster. Thank you so much for your patience, your incredible support, and for being such a smart, respectful, and mindful audience.

In this second installment of our 15-part miniseries, Ground Zero: JM WAVE and the Cuban Question, we explore the chaotic aftermath of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the secret agreements that fundamentally altered President John F. Kennedy's relationship with the anti-Castro exile movement. We trace the Christmas Eve 1962 return of Brigade 2506 prisoners landing at Homestead Air Force Base, culminating in President Kennedy’s famous Orange Bowl address where he received the brigade's battle flag and promised it would be returned in a "free Havana." Yet behind this public spectacle lay a covert reality: Kennedy’s secret letters to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev offering assurances against an invasion of Cuba alongside the confidential removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey. We examine the internal fallout inside the CIA, where task force chief William Harvey's unauthorized dispatch of ten Cuban agent teams during the crisis sparked a furious clash with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, resulting in Harvey’s exile to Rome, his replacement by Desmond Fitzgerald, and a seismic shift in which JM WAVE's 300-plus American officers and thousands of exile operatives were transformed almost overnight from an army of liberation into a volatile political liability.
We detail the Kennedy administration's aggressive 1963 federal crackdown on independent anti-Castro paramilitary factions operating out of South Florida. We examine the U.S. Customs raid on Gerald Patrick Hemming’s Interpen group on No-Name Key, which prompted the exiles to send a white feather of cowardice to the White House, as well as the CIA’s appointment of psychological warfare specialist George Joannides ("Howard") to rein in the student group DRE (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil) and redirect their efforts toward controlled propaganda rather than unsanctioned raids. We follow the Justice Department's prosecution of militant exile groups Alpha 66 and Commandos L following their high-profile attacks on Soviet freighters in Cuban ports, an escalating confrontation that drove Cuban Revolutionary Council leader José Miró Cardona to resign in protest while accusing the White House of a second catastrophic betrayal.
Finally, we expose the secret, high-stakes White House backchannel to Fidel Castro that operated in direct opposition to the CIA's ongoing covert operations. We trace how ABC journalist Lisa Howard ("TV's first lady of sin"), building on Bay of Pigs ransom negotiator James Donovan's private talks with Castro, secured a groundbreaking 10-hour interview in Havana with the Cuban leader, returning with Castro's message that U.S. crackdowns on exile raiders were viewed as a "proper step toward accommodation." We examine a top-secret March 1963 White House memorandum recording President Kennedy’s personal decision to overrule CIA Director John McCone and State Department hardliners by refusing to demand a break with Moscow as a non-negotiable condition, instructing aides to dangle "flies" and explore a "Titoist" model for Cuba. We highlight the dangerous paradox of late 1963, where White House diplomats quietly pursued peace while the CIA continued plotting sabotage raids and poison-laced scuba wetsuits—leaving the radicalized exile community in South Florida convinced of a double-cross while Castro interpreted federal enforcement as a signal of rapprochement.