My Washington Times Review of 'Mafia Spies: The Inside Story Of The CIA, Gangsters, JFK, And Castro'

The Washington Times published my review of Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro.

Although mobster Johnny Roselli was murdered in 1976, his body discovered in a 55-gallon oil drum floating off Miami, Florida, this appears to be his year.

Lee Server wrote an interesting biography of the mobster, “Handsome Johnny: The Life and Death of Johnny Roselli: Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin” (which I reviewed here). And now Roselli is also featured as one of the main historical characters, alongside fellow mobster Sam Giancana, President Kennedy, Cuban Communist dictator Fidel Castro, and Frank Sinatra and the other “Rat Pack” entertainers, in Thomas Maier’s “Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro.”

Although during his lifetime he was well-known in organized crime, gambling and Hollywood movie-making circles, the notably handsome, well-dressed ladies’ man was not as well-known to the general public as many of the other gangsters he was associated with.

That books have been written about his life, as well as an upcoming film about him, has to do with his association with the CIA and the failed plot to kill Fidel Castro.

“The original 1960s Castro murder conspiracy remained a secret for fifteen years, until Congressional hearings in the mid-1970s revealed the spy agency’s basic plot. More spy details were released in the years to come,” Mr. Maier writes. “But the recently declassified files about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, released in batches by the National Archives in 2017-2018, were the biggest help for this book.”

…“Poison bills, exploding cigars, lethal James Bond-like gadgets, midnight boat raids from Florida with Cuban exiles carrying bombs and long-range rifles — a veritable army of undercover spies, double agents, and “cutout” handlers — were all part of this ill-fated campaign emanating from the White House.” Mr. Maier explains.

… I only wish that they had succeeded. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/9/book-review-mafia-spies-by-thomas-maier/ 

Welcome To Hell, Fidel: Cuban Communist Dictator Fidel Castro Is Dead

Joe Tacopino at the New York Post reports that Fidel Castro is dead.

You can read about the life and death of the Cuban Communist dictator via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2016/11/26/cuban-president-fidel-castro-dies-at-90/

Harper Neidig The Hill reports that Cuban-American U.S. Senator Marco Rubio called Castro, "an evil, murderous dictator who inflicted misery and suffering on his own people, " and went on to blast President Obama for his "pathetic" statement on the dictator's death.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307562-rubio-blasts-obamas-pathetic-castro-statement 

Frank Terpil, Rogue CIA Officer And Traitor, Dies In Havana

The British newspaper the Guardian reports on the death of former CIA officer, spy and traitor Frank Terpil.

To those not in the know, he would introduce himself as Robert Hunter. An Australian retiree, he said, whiling away his latter years with his notably younger Cuban wife, in a simple bungalow overlooking the Playas del Este, a string of white sand beaches outside Havana.

The cover fooled most visitors. But there were plenty of clues it wasn’t true. The broad Brooklyn accent; the Hemingwayesque white beard. And a disarming, encyclopaedic knowledge of African and Middle Eastern political leaders, covering five decades.

Robert Hunter wasn’t really Robert Hunter at all. He was Frank Terpil, rogue CIA agent. A man described as a “maniac” by the undercover US policeman who helped convict him in New York in 1981 on charges of seeking to sell 10,000 machine-guns and 20 tonnes of plastic explosives to Libya. A coldly intelligent, no-scruples dealmaker, and confidant of the later 20th century’s most brutal dictators, from the Shah of Iran to Idi Amin.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/cia-rogue-spy-worlds-worst-dictators 

My Crime Beat Column: A Look Back At The Untold Story of The Navy SEALs

Although Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story (William Morrow) is a companion book to the documentary that aired on PBS, there are enough thrilling stories here for a dozen feature films and TV dramas.

With the rescue of Captain Philips from Somali pirates, the raid on bin Laden's compound and other highly publicized missions, Navy SEALs have become America's heroes. Clint Eastwood's film American Sniper, which featured Bradley Cooper as the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, was a huge success at the box office.

Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story traces the evolution of the special operation warriors from their World War II frogmen predecessors to the present day. Dick Couch, a former Navy SEAL, Vietnam veteran and author of several nonfiction books about the SEALs, as well as several thrillers that feature SEALs, co-authored the book. His co-author is William Doyle, the co-author of  American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms, written with the aforementioned Mr. Kyle. 

Realizing that SEALs are a secretive, clannish group, the authors contacted the Navy's Special Warfare Command and asked for their assistance as well as a security review of their book prior to publication. Once the Navy command agreed, many SEALs spoke to the authors. The book was also reviewed and cleared by the CIA.

The authors conducted interviews with more than 100 SEALs and Naval Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU) and Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) members from WWII. They also viewed thousands of pages of declassified files that the command made available to them.  

One good story in the book features a NCDU "Demolitioneer" who was one of the first men on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Another story is about the UDT frogmen who cleared the Japanese-held beaches prior the U.S. Marine assaults. The "Naked Warriors" wore face masks and swim trunks and were armed only with a Ka-Bar knife and explosives in a pouch. We also learn about a later UDT frogman who conducted a mine recovery operation during the Korean War.

The authors explain how in 1960 the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arleigh Burke, ordered his staff to identify Navy units that could be geared towards small-scale warfare, in contrast to the military' nuclear response to a world crisis. The staff recommended the UDT.

"They were a ready-made commando force with strong talents for speed, mobility, sabotage, clandestine infiltration, and small-team tactics, all talents that were ideal for the new mission," the authors write. "A key "birth document " dated March 10, 1961, was sent to Admiral Burke by Rear Admiral E. Gentner, director of the Navy's Strategic Plans Division, in which he proposed an improved "Naval Guerrilla/Counter-guerrilla Warfare" capability. He laid out the specifics, which soon became the foundation of the SEALs and Naval Special Warfare that endured for the next fifty years and beyond: "One unit is proposed under the Pacific and Atlantic amphibious commanders and will represent a center or focal point through which all elements of this specialized Navy capability (naval guerrilla warfare) would be channeled." Later in the memo, the new force was given its name: An appropriate name for such units could be 'SEAL' units, SEAL being a contraction of  SEA, AIR, LAND, and thereby indicating an all-around, universal capability."

   
Mr. Couch tells his own SEAL story about a rescue mission during the Vietnam War, and another interesting story in the book involves a team of SEALs on loan to the CIA who trained anti-Castro Cuban frogmen and saboteurs as part of "Operation Mongoose," President Kennedy's plan to take out Fidel Castro. We learn that the SEALs accompanied the anti-Castro Cubans on one mission to Cuba that destroyed Soviet missile-boats at the Isle of Pines.

The book also takes the reader along on SEAL missions during the conflicts in Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.

 "Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story is clear, concise, and above all factual," retired Admiral William H. McRaven, a former SEAL and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote in a blurb for the book. "If you want to understand today's Navy SEALs you must have an appreciation for the warriors and the missions that shaped our legacy. Dick Couch and William Doyle's book captures the essence of Naval Special Warfare from our storied beginnings to the current fight and gives us a glimpse of what the future might bring for the 21st Century Navy SEALs."  

Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story is a well-written, well-documented and fast-paced book. It is a must for readers of  military history and for those interested in a good story.     

Note:  My late father, Edward M. Davis (seen in the center of the above photo), was a Navy chief and a UDT frogman in WWII. You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the history of the Navy SEALs via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/04/a-look-back-at-history-of-us-navy-seals.html 

The Politics Of Deception: JFK’s Secret Decisions On Vietnam, Civil Rights And Cuba

James Srodes offers a review of Patrick J. Sloyan's The Politics of Decption: JFK's Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cuba in the Washington Times.

This riveting book is a compelling read not only for correcting a much-mythologized era, but also for reminding us of the harsh and often crass realities that influence all our presidents when they get blindsided by the unintended consequences of their acts.

Author Patrick J. Sloyan is a reporter’s reporter. In a 40-year career that spanned covering the White House for United Press International and the First Gulf War for Newsday, Mr. Sloyan collected a shelf of journalism press awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1992.

With dogged persistence, scrupulous archival work and firsthand interviews, he has turned on its ear the sanitized history of the last year of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. He started with the long-awaited release by the Kennedy Presidential Library of hours of audio discs of the secret tape recordings JFK ordered during crucial Oval Office policy decisions taken during those fraught 11 months. He then searched through other presidential archives for the oral histories stored there by other Kennedy aides and tracked down a number of the key participants who were still extant long decades later.

It is not a pretty story, but it resonates. Mr. Sloyan’s conclusions offer no comfort to haters of the fictional Kennedy Camelot nor to the still-thriving industry of the JFK hagiographers, but they explain why seemingly intelligent men do such stupid things when they become president.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/27/book-review-the-politics-of-deception-jfks-secret-/?page=all

From Poisoned Cigars To Exploding Seashells: How Half A Century Of Crackpot CIA Plans To Overthrow Fidel Castro Were Born When JFK Invited James Bond Author Ian Fleming To Dinner

 

In a LIFE magazine piece in the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy listed his favorite 10 books. One of the ten listed was Ian Fleming's James Bond thriller From Russia With Love.  

 

Darren Boyle at the Daily Mail writes about the 1960 meeting between presidential hopeful and then-Senator Kennedy and Ian Fleming.

 

According to the piece, the dinner conversation about Fidel Castro led the Kennedy administration to order the CIA to kill Castro and overthrow his communist government.

 

At the dinner Kennedy asked Fleming, a former British naval intelligence officer who came up with daring and offbeat intelligence plots in WWII, how to deal with Castro. Fleming told Kennedy that Castro had to be humiliated as well as killed.

 

Although the Daily Mail piece does not mention this, the Fleming suggestions were made partly in jest.

 

According to Christopher Moran in the Journal of Cold War Studies: 'Fleming suggested flooding the streets of Havana with pamphlets explaining that radioactive fallout from nuclear testing caused impotence and was known to be drawn to men who had beards.

 

'As a result, Cuban men would shave off their facial hair, thus severing a symbolic link to Castro and the revolution. If this did not work, the CIA should build a religious manifestation, ideally a cross of sorts, and fly it over the Havana skyline in order to induce the Cubans to look skyward.'

 

Between 1960 and 1965 the CIA considered at least eight plots to assassinate Castro.

 

On July 25, 1962, a Top Secret document was prepared for the White House outlining Operation Mongoose, which considered the overthrow of Castro.  

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2878730/The-ill-fated-schemes-upend-Castro.html 

 

Note: In my view, if Castro had been killed the Cuban people would have been spared decades of living under his murderous communist dictatorship, and the world would have been a far better place. I believe the Devil has a nice hot spot in Hell waiting for Castro when he finally dies.

Hemingway's Tropical Retreats Reflect His Adventures

Patricia Sheridan at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offers a piece on Ernest Hemingway's tropical homes in Key West, Florida and Cuba.

KEY WEST, Fla. / HAVANA, Cuba — Ernest Hemingway spent a lifetime cultivating a masculine image and personas. War correspondent, cigar lover, big game hunter, deep sea fisherman, boxer, liberal with liquor, minimalist with words -- all done to maximum effect. Predictably, evidence of his adventures fills the writer’s two tropical homes in Key West and Havana. Hunting and fishing trophies stare down from the walls in nearly every room, as well as photos of his exploits and famous friends. He was a legend in his own time, and movie posters from his books such as “A Farewell to Arms” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” that were made into films adorn the walls. But it’s the spirit of the other kind of trophy he collected, his wives, that helps to distinguish his island retreats.

You can read the rest of the piece and view photos of the Hemingway homes via the below link:

http://www.post-gazette.com/life/travel/2014/06/16/Hemingway-s-Tropical-Retreats/stories/201406160002

Note: I've visited the Hemingway home in Key West and I hope to visit Hemingway's Cuban home once the Castro brothers are dead and the Cuban people are free of communism.

A Review Of 'I Am Soldier Of Fortune: Dancing With Devils'

Retired Brig. General Dale Timothy White reviewed Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown's I Am Soldier of Fortune: Dancing With Devils for the Washington Times.

Robert K. Brown's first-person tour through war zones, revolutions, doomed adventures and the rise of Soldier of Fortune magazine has the punch of a Hollywood action thriller. There are heroes, villains, blazing guns, intrigue, humor, swagger and violent death. Unlike an action movie, it’s real.

From Cuba to Vietnam, Rhodesia to Latin America and Afghanistan, Bob Brown redefined participative journalism while creating a forum for the global warrior culture.

Each issue of Soldier of Fortune — circulation 1 million plus — is iconic to readers of a special stripe: veterans, active duty, special operators, mercenaries, gun lovers, law enforcement, adventurers, survivalists and those wish they were any of those. It’s not unusual for a combat veteran to admit he got his first glimpse of what he could become in the pages of SOF.

Soldier of Fortune launched in 1975 as a way for Mr. Brown, a Green Beret in Vietnam, to reach out to brothers in arms. SOF became a global touchstone linking a broad community of warriors willing to go anywhere and do anything — for adventure, for a cause or for a price. Along the way, Mr. Brown and his rugged band of paramilitary journalists wrote, photographed and shot their way through a score of revolutions and brush fire wars, were damned and praised by governments around the world, exposed crooks and scam artists and were sued multiple times for enabling mayhem and even murder.

However improbable the success of Soldier of Fortune, the story of its founder and field commander is more so.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/23/book-review-i-am-soldier-of-fortune/

Che Guevara's Image Doesn't Fit Ghastly Reality

Cuban-American Humberto Fontova offers his take on the Communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che' Guevara in the Miami Herald.

Good thing the college “hipsters” who wear Che T-shirts didn’t live in Stalinist Cuba under their idol.

“Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates!” snarled the KGB-mentored Che Guevara in 1961. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service! Youth should learn to think and act as a mass. It is criminal to think of individuals! Individualism must disappear from Cuba!

By the mid-’60s, the crime of a “rocker” lifestyle (blue jeans, long hair, fondness for the Beatles and Stones) or effeminate behavior got thousands of youths yanked out of Cuba’s streets and parks by Che’s KGB-trained secret police and dumped in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” emblazoned in bold letters above the gate and with machine-gunners posted on the watchtowers. The initials for these camps were UMAP, not GULAG, but the conditions were quite similar.      

Today, the world’s largest image of the man whom so many college hipsters sport on their shirts adorns Cuba’s headquarters and torture chambers for its KGB-trained secret police. Nothing could be more fitting.  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link: 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/16/3693495/che-guevaraa-image-doesnt-fit.html 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/16/3693495/che-guevaraa-image-doesnt-fit.html#storylink=cpy

 

The Wrap-Up With The Anti-Che, Freedom Fighter And Patriot Felix Rodriguez

Jay Nordlinger at National Review offers his third and final piece in his series on Cuban-American Felix Rodriguez, the CIA agent who helped capture Communist revolutionay Che Guevara in Boliva in 1967.

In 1976, Felix Rodriguez left the CIA for several reasons. (Readers of my magazine piece will recall this.) One of those reasons was security. His cover was blown; he was receiving death threats.
The Agency offered to give Rodriguez and his family new identities and move them to a different state. Rodriguez decided against. It would be too disruptive, too upsetting to the family, he determined.

So, the Agency took some steps to afford him some security. They outfitted his home in various ways. They bullet-proofed his car, at Langley. They gave him a mobile phone — “something very rare at the time,” says Rodriguez. When he called a seller of such phones, he was told that the waiting list was ten years. Then Langley made a call. And Rodriguez got the phone in two days.

There were some other arrangements as well, and the Rodriguezes forged ahead.

Rodriguez is not very interested in money, and he has lived frugally. “I am very organized with my finances. I have never had a penny of interest on my credit card. If I don’t have the money, I don’t buy whatever it is.” He bought his house in 1969, for $29,800. “We borrowed 8,000 for the down payment.”

This seems a classic American story, old-school.

You can read the rest of the piece and link to part one and two of the series via th below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358986/wrap-anti-che-jay-nordlinger

You can also read my Washington Times review of Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture The World's Most Famous Revoluntionary via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-washington-times-review-of-hunting_6.html   

Note: The above photo of Felix Rodriguez (on the left) with Che Guevara was provided by Felix Rodriguez.

Re-Branding Guevara: Che The Butcher

 

John Fund at National Review Online offers an interesting piece on the violent history (and myth) and continuing influence of the communist guerrilla Che Guevara.

The stern photo of revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda in 1960 is one of the most reproduced images on the planet, appearing on posters, flags, postcards, T-shirts, and even bikinis. Sadly, the ubiquitous appearances of Che — hailed today usually by his first name only — demonstrate the near-total failure to educate people about the blood-soaked cruelty he really represented. 

... After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Che was instrumental in setting up forced-labor camps for dissidents, gays, and devout Catholics. He was put in charge of La Cabaña Fortress prison for five months. There are varying accounts of how many people were executed under his command during that time, and how many deaths are attributed directly to Che as opposed to the regime overall, but some sources say that more than 100 journalists, businessmen, and followers of the previous regime faced death by firing squad at La Cabaña, under Che’s jurisdiction.

... Nor was Che’s violence directed only against Cubans. Author Humberto Fontova points to evidence that Guevara, the chief instigator of Castro’s revolutionary efforts overseas, was involved in a November 1962 terrorist plot to use 1,200 pounds of TNT to blow up Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdale’s, and Grand Central Station on the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year. Such an act could have rivaled 9/11 in its destruction. This is hardly a man who deserves to be honored as a hero on T-shirts.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/321089/re-branding-guevara-che-butcher-john-fund#

You can also read my interview with Humberto Fontova about Che Guevara via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache4.jpg 

Hemingway's Boat: Replica Of Hemingway's Boat Ready For Its Close-Up

 

Brett Clarkson at the Sun Sentinel reports on the replica of the boat that belonged to the late great writer Ernest Hemingway, which will be featured in an upcoming movie.

RIVIERA BEACH — It's a boat fit for Papa but it wasn't always that way.

Before the words 'Pilar' and 'Key West Fla' were inscribed on its stern in gleaming paint, before its entire structure was revamped and restored to exacting specifications, this stone-cold replica of Ernest Hemingway's fishing boat was a ship past its prime in New York state.

But that was then. Now, the boat is tied to a local marina dock awaiting its turn to star in the upcoming film 'Hemingway and Fuentes.' Featuring Anthony Hopkins as Hemingway and Andy Garcia as his fishing buddy Gregorio Fuentes, the movie will touch upon Hemingway's years in Cuba in the 1950s.

It was a pivotal time for Hemingway, who wrote the classic "The Old Man and the Sea" after befriending Fuentes. The two grew close and spent a lot of time fishing together on the Pilar, Hemingway's custom-made Wheeler Playmate Cabin Cruiser. Bought by the writer for $7,455 in 1934, the boat became a lifelong retreat for the author before his suicide in 1961.

"She is not only a boat but a main character in our film," Garcia said in a press release.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-hemingway-boat-20120724,0,6147776.story

You can also read an earlier post on Andy Garcia's upcoming Hemingway film via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2012/05/anthony-hopkins-and-andy-garcia-to-film.html

You can also read a review of Paul Henrickson's outstanding book, Hemingway's Boat, via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/09/papa-and-true-love-of-his-life.html

Yes, Him Again: Che Guevara Diaries Are Published 44 Years After His Death

Communist Cuba is releasing Che Guevara's unpublished diaries 44 years after his death in Bolivia.

The British newspaper the Guardian offers a droll and clever report on the Guevara diaries and his life.

You can read the newspaper piece via the below link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/15/pass-notes-che-guevara     

You can learn more about Che Guevara by reading my Counterterrorism magazine interview with Humberto Fontova, author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/KesslerTerroristWatch3.jpg

Retracing Hemingway's Steps In Cuba

 

Janice Law at the Galveston Daily News wrote an interesting piece about her visit visit to Ernest Hemingway's old house in Cuba.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://galvestondailynews.com/story/228686

The great writer has been in the news lately as there are several film productions in progress on his life and his fiction.

You can read an earlier post on the film productions via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/06/hbo-to-make-movie-of-ernest-hemingway.html

You can also read my column on Hemingway and crime via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-crime-thrillers-hemingway-on-crime.html

Comical Che Guevara at the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Cuban-American Humberto Fontova has written another interesting piece about the anti-Castro, anti-Communist Bay of Pigs invasion that unfortunatly failed to topple Fidel Castro from Cuba 49 years ago this month.

In this piece, Fontova focuses on Che Guevara - hero of the Communists, the left and ignorant entertainers and students - and his comical military actions during the Bay of Pigs.

Guevara, the so-called great guerrilla fighter, whose famous photo is pasted on t-shirts worn by celebrities and protesters around the world, shot himself during the invasion.


You can read Fontova's piece via the below link:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/che_guevara_at_the_bay_of_pigs.html

You can read my previous post on Fontova and the Bay of Pigs via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/04/bay-of-pigs-anniversary-of-heroism-and.html