Cubana Flight 455 was a Cubana de Aviación flight departing from Barbados, via Trinidad, to Cuba. On October 6, 1976 two timebombs variously described as dynamite or C-4 planted on the Douglas DC-8 aircraft exploded, killing all 73 people on board
If you’ve ever seen the movie Casino you are familiar with the basic outlines of the life and career of Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal. He was played by Robert DeNiro in the movie. Lefty Rosenthal shows up in a new declassified set of documents (.pdf) that went up on the National Security Archive last Thursday.
The documents detail information about a famous terrorist and CIA contract agent named Luis Posada Carriles.
An anti-Castro militant now in a Texas jail warned the CIA months before the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that fellow exiles were planning such an attack, according to a newly released U.S. government document.
The document shows that Luis Posada Carriles – who had worked for the CIA but was cut off by the agency earlier that year – was secretly telling the CIA that his fellow far-right Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro’s communist government were plotting to bring down a commercial jet.
The document does not say what the CIA did with Posada’s tip. A CIA spokesman said he had no comment on Monday, a federal holiday.
So, I was looking through the documents when I came across some interesting entries in Posada’s ‘sanitized’ case file. For example (with typos):
Memo for record 6/36/67
Re investigation by Justice Department of Left Rosenthal who they belive tied in with organized crime figures in Miami area and also involved with 7 recent bombings in Miami area. Rosenthal went to Norman Rothman in DR and thru him ot indiri thru him Diego, Rosenthal put in touch with Posada. Rosenthal understands Posada attached with CIA and claims Posada supplied him with caps, primers, and c-4 explosives
6/28/67 REDRAFT Note for the record – telephone conversation’
On station instrcutions, Posada cooperated with Rosenthal as intermediary, passing hand grenades and silencers in July 1965. In Oct. 66, Posada recontacted Rosenthal. Under threat of bodily harm, Posada was forced to supply Rosenthal with 150 pencils and some fuses. Station only recently advised of this transaction. Items not agency origin.
6/28/67 Memo for the record
Suggests Posada may have been moonlighting for Rosenthal and only reported transactions to agency when it got hotter.
6/7/68 Memo IRD #72501
Posada re assigned to [REDACTED 16-17,01] Transferred because of question of bona fides, possible affiliation of Cuban intelligence thru relatives; unreported association with gangster elements; thefts from CIA, plus other itesms. Posada interrogated.
Posada sensitive to question relating to dealings with Lefty Tosenthal, possibly over amount of items he had been instrumental in getting for Rosentahal.
Posada’s brother possibly member of Cuban CP (Robertto) but also believed brother Raul may be with Cuban intelligence. Raul spent a year training in the USSR in 1962, to best of Posada’s recollection.
Posada took several items with him to Caracas which were poss. orginally LNHARP or CIA items: 3 or 4 smoke grenades, booby traps, delay fuse, primer cord, MK2 grenades, 10 pencils, metscope, etc.
Consorting with the mob, possible connections to Cuban intelligence, and stealing agency property got Posada ‘re assigned’ to Caracas, Venezuela. In 1973 the Agency became concerned that Posada was involved in cocaine trafficking. They investigated and decided he was only guilty of ‘having the wrong type of friends’.
In 1974 they terminated his contract over tax issues. I don’t know what that really means. But Posada continued to act as a voluntary informant. According to the file, he warned the CIA about the plot to blow up a Cuban airliner before it happened. He was nevertheless arrested by the Venezuelans, and the CIA determined that he was linked to the bombing.
Posada is a terrorist. He is responsible for killing 73 people on a Cuban flight, including the entire Cuban Olympic fencing team. He hasn’t reformed himself either. In 2000 he was arrested in Panama for attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro. The departing President of Panama gave him a pardon in 2004. He is now in U.S. custody. And the judge will not extradite him for fear…wait for it…that he will be tortured.
My guess is that we are less concerned with the fact that he might be tortured than we are with the prospect of Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro getting their hands on a man with so much knowledge of U.S. sponsored terrorism.
