In a letter sent to John R. Tunheim in 1994, Bradley Ayers claimed that he believed that the following " have intimate operational knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assassination" of John F. Kennedy: Theodore Shackley, Grayston Lynch, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, Gordon Campbell, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Edward Roderick and Tony Sforza.

I would be grateful for any information anyone has on Tony Sforza.

http://www.namebase.org/xsen/Anthony-J-Sforza.html

The namebase entry for Sforza:

Cuba 1959-1962 Chile 1970 Mexico 1970-1971

Assn. Former Intelligence Officers. Membership Directory. 1983
Atlantic Monthly 1982-12 (45-6, 55-6)
Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (261-2, 302)
Fonzi,G. The Last Investigation. 1993 (384)

As the Namebase entry suggests, there is not much on Tony Sforza. However, he definitely seems a person worth investigating. Sforza was was based in Cuba in 1959. He lived in Havana under the cover of working as a professional gambler and developed contacts with the Mafia in Cuba. A close associate of Theodore Shackley he was based at JM/WAVE in the early 1960s and worked as a paramilitary agent with Grayston Lynch and Rip Robertson.

In 1970 Sforza served in Chile. According to David Corn (Blond Ghost), Sforza worked with General Roberto Viaux in the overthrow of Salvador Allende. Corn quotes a memo written by fellow agent, John Murray, that Sforza and Bruce MacMaster, took part in a mission "to help create a situation which would encourage the Chilean military to activate a military takeover of the Chilean government."

Sforza moved to Mexico in 1971. Bruce MacMaster, a veteran CIA operative, claimed that Sforza had exploited "Agency pouches to ship contraband" and "had sent a large package of hard-core pornography to the Mexico City station".

In May, 1973, John Murray, chief of the CIA station in Mexico City, sent documents to Theodore Shackley that Tony Sforza was involved in the assassination of General Rene Schneider in Chile. Shackley did nothing with this material and instead sent Murray to be chief of station in Jamaica.

In his book, The Last Investigation, Gaeton Fonzi quotes Ruben Carbajal as saying that Sforza was very close to David Morales. According to Carbajal, both men admitted that "they killed men for the agency". Fonzi also saw a CIA document that stated "Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous".

After leaving the CIA Tony Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami. Like David Morales Sforza died in 1978 of a heart-attack before being interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsforza.htm

John,

There is a CIA man still living who would have information on Sforza. His name is Don Winters and he is known for being open regarding his time with the Agency.

For anyone who wants to put the time in to contact Winters, may indeed be rewarded.

FWIW.

James

Bruce MacMaster is someone who is closely associated with Tony Sforza:

http://www.namebase.org/xmac/Bruce-Macmaster.html

Nicaragua 1962-1966 Dominican Rep 1966-1968 Mexico 1968-1971 Chile 1970 Guatemala 1971-1974

Atlantic Monthly 1982-12 (55-6)
Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (261-2, 302)
Hitchens,C. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. 2001 (64)
Neuberger,G. Opperskalski,M. CIA in Mittelamerika. 1983 (193)
Neuberger,G. Press Conference in Costa Rica. 1981-11-05
State Dept. Biographic Register. 1973

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995)

I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview...

Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban?

A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed.

Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

I notice Tony Sforza had "social network" ties to the ultimate

Latin American conspiracy figures:


Ford, Rockefeller and Kissinger

Tony Sforza's daughter has contacted me. She points out that he died in 1984 and not 1978. If that is the case, why was Sforza not asked to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Maybe it was put around that he was dead so that he was not investigated by the HSCA.

If you have any information or questions on Sforza please post it on this thread and I will pass them onto his daughter.

Do we know that this man's name was even known in 1977-1979?

Correct me if I am wrong but I understand the HSCA was not even aware of important CIA officers working on the Cuan problem such as George Joannides and Carl Jenkins. So unless you have evidence to the contrary perhaps Sforza was simply a man whose name did not appear on the radar screens.

Extract from Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (page 384):

It was on that first trip, Carbajal says, that he, Walton and Morales, outlasting the others, stayed up until dawn, "just drinking and bullshitting and having a good time." On subsequent trips only he and Walton made, Morales arranged for them to meet some of his Agency associates. At a cocktail party in a large, luxury apartment somewhere in nearby Virginia, among those Carbajal remembers being introduced to were Ed Wilson, Tom Clines and Ted Shackley.

Everyone hit it off so well at that first meeting in Washington, that Morales arranged to fly the whole Carbajal family and the Waltons down to Miami with him, where he also kept an apartment. "I remember when we got to the airport there wasn't enough room on the plane," recalls Rocky, "but Didi pulls out this card, I remember it was a black card, and the stewardesses actually bumped people off that plane so we could get on." Morales showed the group a good time in Miami, and took them around to the old haunts of his anti-Castro comrades, including a visit to Les Violins, the classy Latin show bar where once the Agency spooks, the local soldiers of fortune and the Cubans would huddle at dark tables and plan their next infiltration raids into Cuba. Bob Walton still has his swizzle stick as a souvenir.

Later Morales arranged another trip to Miami for Carbajal to have him make additional contacts who might be helpful in the commodities business. One was Manuel Artime, the CIA's military leader for the Bay of Pigs. Artime was an especially valuable contact since he was then business partners with Nicaragua dictator Anastasio Somoza. Carbajal remembers meeting Artime in E. Howard Hunt's house where, he was told, Artime was living while Hunt was in prison for his Watergate role. (More likely, Artime was simply entertaining there; he actually lived across the street from Hunt.) That Morales should reveal to Carbajal the level of his associations in the Agency illustrates both his own status and his absolute trust in Carbajal. Because of that trust, one of Morales's comrades, Tony Sforza, also took Carbajal into his confidence.

"Sforza got very close to me because of Didi," Carbajal says. "Didi told him, `This is my brother, man. He's like a brother.' They both used to tell me some stories. Oh, yeah, they killed people for the Agency."

I had not previously mentioned Sforza's name to Carbajal and he didn't know it was familiar to me. It had appeared, along with the names of Morales and Shackley and the others, in that "Highly Sensitive" document I had received in 1978. "This man handled anti-Castro activities on behalf of the CIA," the document noted. "He still runs a Cuban `blow-up group.' Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous." Like Morales a veteran deep-cover agent, Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami after his "retirement" from the CIA. He died within six months of Morales, also from a sudden heart attack.

Fonzi was of course an investigator with the HSCA. Was he told he was dead so that he did not carry out an investigation into Sforza?

Excellent reply and good question, John.

Perhaps I can ask Gordon Winslow to make this inquiry of Mr. Fonzi.

This is what Larry Hancock had to say about Sforza: (page 420)

David Morales also retired in 1975 and died in 1978, shortly before Tony Sforza. Sforza is known to have operated within Cuba and to have conducted JM/WAVE exfiltration missions for Morales. His contact for one such mission involved passing information to David Phillips in Mexico City. Sforza (cryptonym SLOMAN) had been a major CIA covert operative inside Cuba and there is reason to speculate that he used the alias Frank Stevens, known as Enrique inside Cuba, where he operated under the cover of being a professional gambler. If so, he is associated with at least one major CIA Castro assassination attempt and at one point he served as case officer for Morales' AMOT group an attempt verified in a newly located document and one which was apparently withheld from the Church Committee.

John wrote:

If you have any information or questions on Sforza please post it on this thread and I will pass them onto his daughter.

John, you could just ask her how many of these statements about her father are correct.

He still runs a Cuban `blow-up group.' Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous." Like Morales a veteran deep-cover agent, Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami after his "retirement" from the CIA.

While you are at it, might as well ask her if he was in Miami on November 22.

Who was Edward Roderick? I don't recall seeing that name before.

See my page on him here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroderickE.htm

John, You might ask her if she has any way of knowing where he was 'on a trip' during the assassination. My hunch is the truth would be in the thickets of Dallas. Ask her also if she knows what countries he was travelling to, in the months leading up to Nov. 22. While she might well not know or have been too young to care or notice, but anything on the last times he met/worked with any of the names listed on this thread after the assassination mght also be of interest.

I have it on good authority that he was in Mexico City in November, 1963.

There were many days in November.......

At least 30.

I agree. Another source tells me that he was also involved in the Miami plot against JFK.

Since he was close to those involved in Dallas, all the other plots they had against JFK he'd most likely have been involved in......though I don't have specific info on others. My point on the many days remark is it would not surprise me that he was also in MC once or more before Dallas. You can be sure what he was doing there involved Dallas.

U. S. Army Major, explosives expert/Corp of Engineers, attached to JMWAVE and later CIA employee upon retirement from Army


Anyone know what Operation Red Cross was? I believe Ayers mentions it in the Zeneith Secret.

Found on internet at: http://www.afio.org/sections/wins/2005/2005-04.html#TOC_SECV
FRENCH DOCUMENTARY ON U.S. COVERT OPERATIONS IN CHILE 1970s: "I'm a French journalist preparing a documentary about Chile in the seventies. The idea of this documentary is to discuss with people who have been active during this period and whose actions had an influence on the history of that country. We want to know their point of view about the result of these actions. It is not a historical film, nor a film which is going to judge what has been done. Our desire is to have a human point of view on facts that are now history and to know what their feelings were in these troubled times. Any AFIO Member who had an active role in US nonofficial intervention in Chile would be of interest for us to talk to. Here is a list of people directly linked to Chile. Please help me reach or talk about them. Ex CIA : William Broe, Western Hemisphere division chief; Henry Hecksher, Chief of station in Santiago; Ray Warren, Chief of Station Santiago; Anthony Sforza, Bruce MacMasters, Donald Winters; Agents US Army: Colonel Paul Wimert, Military Attaché in Chile for the Defense Intelligence Agency; Lt. Col. Patrick Ryan, Head of the US. MILGROUP in Valparaiso. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail or phone, should you have any questions, or would like further information. Most of all, thank you very much for your help." REPLIES to Manou Jakubowicz, Journalist, at manou_74@club-internet.fr or by voice: +33 (0)1 70 08 37 99,

CIA documents covered in SWHT, and months back on this forum, relate that he was to make a social visit out of Cuba to Mexico city
over the period of November 21-23. That trip was a dummy and was to allow him to bring out information related to a planned
exfiltration, an urgent one important to CIA HQ, that was to come through the keys with JMWAVE support. David Phillips was to pick
up the info in Mexico City and get it to David Morales who was handling operational elements of the exfiltration.

I've speculated that this appears to have to do with getting Castro's sister out...separate documents connect Sforza to that....and that
the plan for this date aborted due to the assassination, she actually came out quite a bit later but for some reason it appears urgent
that she was initially to come out of Cuba at the end of November.

-- Larry

Peter,

Operation Red Cross was in fact Operation Tilt. Red Cross appeared in a Soldier of Fortune article but I'm not sure how that designation came to be.

Regarding Tony Sforza, he was highly regarded by Agency personnel. In 1965, he was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit.

FWIW.

James

The documents appear to be concurrent, they talk about Sforza coming out and they specifically assign Phillips to pick
up and transfer the exfilitration information. They appear to be generated beyond Phillips own level and he is being
given the assignment. It certainly appears that this is a project generated above both Phillips and even Morales
level and they are being assigned duties.

I think James may have posted at least one of the relevant documents here before.

Here is information from someone who wishes to remain anonymous but from my experience, a extremely reliable source:

Tony Sforza worked closely with the Tepedino family (father and son)..... Mr Sforza was hidden in the home of Carlos Tepedino Snr (in Cuba) at the time of the Bay of Pigs..... he worked with the son Carlos Tepedino jr (AM/WHIP 1) who was involved in the AM/LASH assassination plots against Fidel (Rolando Cubela).He was closely involved with Emilio America Rodriguez, Frank Belsito and other covert CIA warriors on a mission run out of New York in the fall of 1962.

Larry, I re-read about it in your book and the reference was to a document dated Nov. 22...perhaps there were a few documents on this in that time frame. What is your hunch? Real mission assignement or cover your ass papers to 'prove' not in MC or Dallas; nor Phillips/Morales focused on same?

Thanks James, that would clear things up a good bit.....so it was Tilt!....Hmmmmm........!

John,

Carlos Tepedino is a very interesting character. William Harvey had quite some interest in him regarding suggestions that Tepedino was smuggling jewels.

I think Tepedino was actually born Carlos Lopez. Can you ask your contact if they can confirm that?

James

I will do so.

Joan Mellen has some interesting information about him in A Farewell to Justice:

Phillips blames the Soviet Union for masterminding the assassination, mingling truth with fiction. Warren Commission critics, as Helms had outlined, were dupes of the KGB, as Max Holland's thesis about Jim Garrison once more can be traced, not only to Helms, but also to the most skillful of CIA propagandists, David Atlee Phillips. In an amusing side note, CIA's Win Scott steals Harrison's journal, even as, in real life, it was James Angleton who broke into Scott's files after his death and stole his novel manuscript.

Yet another trace of David Atlee Phillips' connections to the events of November 22nd, which included both the assassination of President Kennedy and the arming of Rolando Cubela with the means to assassinate Fidel Castro, emerges in a CIA cable. Miami is informing its Mexico City station that one "Henry J. Sloman," an alias for longtime CIA asset Anthony (Tony) Sforza, would be arriving in Mexico on November 22nd. Because the CIA was fond of providing Mafia cover for some of its assets, many people mistakenly concluded that the Mafia had been behind the assassination of President Kennedy. CIA's Sloman, himself, as Seymour M. Hersh points out, "was considered a professional gambler and a high-risk smuggler directly linked to the Mafia."

In Mexico City, Sloman/Sforza was to meet the wife of an agent designated as AMHALF-2, and retrieve a message regarding the "Martime Exfil of headquarters asset" who was to arrive in Mexico "on 22 November," and may have been Fidel Castro's sister, Juanita. Sloman was ordered to contact Phillips, mentioned here under his longtime alias "[Michael] Choaden," on the next day and pick up the information that had arrived from "[02] Exit-3." AMHALF would be a link person, part of the communication circuit providing intercepts for island assets. Between 1960 and 1963, there were something like 350,000 such intercepts either by land lines or on island assets, all directed to CIA.

Sloman was the case officer for, among others, Emilio Rodriguez, the oldest son of Arnesto Rodriguez and brother of Arnesto, Junior, whom Oswald had visited in New Orleans in an attempt to learn how he might involve himself in training camps for sabotage against Castro.

The header of this November 22nd, 1963, CIA cable includes the cryptonym PBRUMEN, which referred to Cuba. By its timing it suggests the Cubela assassination attempt of November 22nd. It also seems to suggest that Oswald believed that he was involved in the attempts on Castro's life and did not know he would be linked to the shooting in Dealey Plaza.

This extraordinary document, if fragmentary, is interesting, too, because it provides an alibi for David Atlee Phillips under the alias he used in Cuba, "Michael Choaden." If Phillips was down in Mexico, as he would be expected to be, waiting to be contacted by Sloman, he was not in Texas; this cable would confirm for any record that David Atlee Phillips was somewhere other than at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

Not to divert the thread too much - but maybe not a move off topic - I've always had a funny feeling about the Cubela assignment to kill Castro timed for the same day as the assassination of JFK, as those who were in control of both were the same persons. Could the Cubela action have been connected as part of the 'Plan A' with Oswald going to or being made to seem to go to  Cuba....and then having someone in Cuba killing Castro 'in retaliation' - in order to give excuse for a coup or to allow an invasion? Or, alternatively, the Sloman/Sforza op in some way a part of the Oswald in Cuba ploy?
Might these documents [and the others on Cubella] in some way play into these, as well as give Phillips an alibi should things not work out for Plan A? I'm sure all involved were making multiple alibis and contingency plans.

Sfroza evidently was involved in the assassination of Gen. Rene Schneider in Chile, and there is more info in Kornbluth's book The Pinochet File.

From Bradley E. Ayers' The Zenith Secret - p.87-88

After RFK leaves a remote Everglades camp area by helicopter, Ayers is told by Gordon Campbell that, "....You'll be happy to know that the Special Group has finally given us permission to use two-man submarines to strike Castro's ships in the harbors. Some of your UDT people will be involved in that. And next week Rip's boys are going to Elgin for parachute training, so an airborne commando raid may not be far off. But right now we've got a go-ahead to hit one of the major oil refineries from on the islad. All we've got to do id get a commando force in shape to do the job."

"...Rip has his commandos just up the Key, and Rosselli has his group at Point Mary some of th time.....My outside man Karl will help you with logistics. Take the deliveris and carry the items to the island yourself. Order as little as you have to from logistics, and buy all of your own food....Here's the safehouse key and $1,000 to get things moving....I signed the unmarked, commercial cash-receipt and went back to the fire. Campbell introduced me to Tony Sforza the commando-team contact man, and Karl, then he led me to the H-13 helicopter and instructed the pilot to take me back to Tamiami Airport and then return for the rest of the men."

"...At the end of the week I went ashore to see Tony. But the meeting was disapointing. He gave me only a brief background sketch on each of the men, but from spending so much time with them, I already knew most of what he told me...."

p.189
"...The reader may recall that it was the Letelier car bombing that initially prompted the interest in Morales and Sforza by HSCA investigators...."

That makes it pretty clear that Sforza was involved in all the Chile-related matters: Letelier, Schneider, Allende...maybe even Colonia Dignidad!....

NB, that was not the first time Sforza was involved in a car bombing.

Tony Sforza has been named as the CIA agent who recruited Juanita Castro:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/2...ister-cia-agent

To the CIA she was Donna: a Cuban spy who hid documents inside cans of food and sent secret messages via a clandestine radio and two tunes – a waltz and a song from the opera Madame Butterfly.

Today, Donna was revealed to the rest of the world as Juanita Castro – the sister of Fidel and Raúl, rulers of Cuba and legendary conquerors of US espionage efforts – when she blew the whistle on her career as a CIA agent.

The rogue sibling revealed extraordinary details of her hidden identity in a memoir, Fidel and Raúl, My Brothers: The Secret History, which could force a partial revision of the CIA's role in Cuba. For half a century its efforts against Fidel were considered fiascos, prompting recrimination and ridicule. It tried and failed to kill him, tried and failed to invade Cuba, and tried and failed to foment revolt.

Cuba was just 90 miles off Florida, but its ruler was thought too wily and his regime too hermetic for the hapless American spies. Now, in what she describes as the family's best-kept secret, Juanita has revealed that the CIA infiltrated the world's most famous communist clan.

The 76-year-old Miami exile recounts how she sheltered government opponents in her Havana home, among other subversive acts, before leaving Cuba in 1964 and publicly denouncing Fidel and Raul as despots, a bombshell which damaged the revolution's image in Latin America.

There had been widespread speculation for many years about Juanita's recruitment, said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst who is now a senior researcher in Cuba studies at the University of Miami, and author of the book After Fidel. "She was considered a success by the CIA. It was very pleased with her, especially after she left Cuba. She was very outspoken and played a critical propaganda role in travelling around Latin America. She had quite an impact in Chile's 1964 election."

Juanita initially hailed the revolution's 1959 triumph over the US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and supported its social programmes by working in health clinics. But executions of opponents and the squelching of democratic hopes disillusioned her. She was already discreetly aiding dissidents when, according to her book, the wife of the Brazilian ambassador in Havana, Virginia Leitao da Cunha, asked her to meet a CIA agent, Tony Sforza. Sforza had previously worked on a Cuba-related CIA project known as Operation Mangosta.

"Many of our men are working there [in Cuba] and run the risk of being discovered," Sforza told her at the Hotel Camino Real in Mexico City. "The mission involves protecting them and helping them move from one place to another with as much security as possible, finding them places to stay in houses that are safe." Her family links gave her invaluable access to prisons, he added.

Juanita agreed to take on the code name Donna and gave Sforza two tunes that, when played over a clandestine radio, would signify that she had, "or did not have", a message. One of them was Madame Butterfly; the other was a waltz, Fascinación.

Her first mission was to take money, messages and documents back to Cuba from Mexico, hidden inside cans of food. She also carried a codebook back with her and, after receiving a shortwave radio, persuaded two former school friends to aid her. She says she refused to take part in anything that would cause bloodshed and refused payment for her services.

Her cooperation was a rare cold war success for spymasters tasked with toppling the Soviet Union's tropical ally. The Kennedy White House authorised many CIA assassination attempts – ensuing decades racked up 638 efforts, according to one estimate - as well as the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by exiles.

Juanita held no senior government rank and was not thought to be privy to official secrets, but her enlistment by the US, if verified, dents the reputation of Cuba's formidable intelligence service.

Raúl, the then defence minister and now president in place of the ailing Fidel, knew of their sister's wayward political views in 1964, but still approved her trip to Mexico, where she defected.

The revelation that the CIA appeared to have been pulling strings, and not simply applauding, is likely to annoy Cuba's government, even though the events were so long ago, said one western diplomat in Havana. "Under Obama, relations between the US and Cuba are going in a slightly better direction. This won't help that process."

State media will report the news if authorities calculate they can turn the story to their advantage, said the diplomat. "Even if the media here ignore it, the story will do the rounds among the public. But it's history, and Cubans are used to not being surprised by anything."

This week the UN will take its annual vote against the US embargo of the island, a 49-year-old policy widely deemed anachronistic and unjustified.

It is unclear why Juanita, who spent the past two decades quietly working in a pharmacy in Miami, waited until now to tell her story. She began working on the book, published by Santillana, with her co-author, the journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, in 1999, but then stopped and resumed only this year.

Published simultaneously in the US, Mexico, Colombia and Spain, the memoir had Harry Potter-style secrecy and was kept in sealed boxes and secured pallets to avoid leaks.