Cryptonym: AMJUTE-1
104-10061-10115: LIST OF NAMES RE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION INVESTIGATION
AMJUTE-1 is named as Arnesto Napoleon Rodriguez y Gonzalez on a list of cryptonyms.
104-10072-10212: LIST OF FILES BY C NUMBER
4/4/62: Cancelling of POA, lists all of his numbers in the CIA index - check mark next to his 201-75643 - the search apparently focused on him.
104-10072-10167: RESPONSE TO GREEN LIST REQUEST NO. 100152
4/6/60 response to Green List: Arnesto Rodriguez is identified as a semi-retired manufacturer's representative in Havana. WH/4 Joe Piccolo appears to be his officer. His son is Emilio A. Rodriguez Casanova, also known as AMIRE-1. Rodriguez is described as a "33rd degree Mason active. Has letters of commendation for services performed for US Navy attache Amlegation in Havana, 1918, and from Military Attache Amlegation Havana for services (in) 1934. Has citation from ONI dated 1935. Assigned cryptonym number 64/1". Also see 104-10072-10153, identifying him as 201-275643.
4/6/60 request by WH/4 Joe Piccolo to CI/Operational Approval and Support Division: Rodriguez, CI/OA number 82375, identified as AMJUTE-1. "Subject will be used in Audio Surveillance Ops"
Harold Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, Chapter 13: http://jfk.hood.edu/index.shtml?browse.php
1962 period: "From one Carlos Grimader the Secret Service got the names of those men entitled to sign checks for the "Crusade to Free Cuba Committee" (which might better have been called "The Crusade to Fill Sergio Arcacha's Pockets") and the Cuban Revolutionary Council. These are Arnesto Rodriguez, Sr., and Jr., Luis Rabel, Joaquin Villodas, Manuel Gil and Sergio Arcacha Smith. The comment following the name of Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr., might have interested agents whose bonnets were not buzzing with imaginary red bees. It reads, "alleged owner of Berlitz School," and It is a kind of a clue...According to Arnesto Rodriguez, Sr., "Ronny Caire . . . the principal organizer" of the "Crusade," "prevailed upon Arcacha to join or become part of" it. And also according to Rodriguez, the Ronny Caire fund solicitation literature "showed that contributions were to be sent to either 544 Camp Street or to the Post Office box of Sergio Arcacha." Aside from the revelation of Arcacha's capacity for keeping his feet in the trough, this says that after the Cuban Revolutionary Council no longer had offices at 544 Camp Street, Arcacha was using it interchangeably with his personal post office box for mail and that mail addressed to an exile group at 544 Camp Street would reach it! Of course, it is possible one or both of these Secret Service sources were wrong. It is also possible they were right. Such is the nature of this investigation. But the most obvious probability is that "Crusade" and "Arcacha" mail reached Banister's office." See 180-10073-10072, p. 11: Ronnie Caire said "Ernesto Rodriguez was said to be the leader of the anti-Arcacha faction." He was replaced by Luis Rabel.
Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 56
1962-63: Arnesto Rodriguez is identified as a CIA asset, and that his cryptonym showed that he was part of an on-island surveillance network. His son Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr. was a New Orleans resident, and an FBI security informant with the symbol NO 1213-S. His mother told the authorities that Arnesto, Jr. had an audiotape of Lee Harvey Oswald, but he responded that his mother was mistaken. Arnesto, Jr. reported that he was manager at the Modern Languages Institute, and that former employee William Cuthbert Brady used to visit the Ryder House bar that was also frequented by Lee Oswald. Brady was a prominent Republican that left for the Philippines after being picked up on a morals charge. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9986&search=%221213-S%22#relPageId=93&tab=page Also see 104-10428-10135, p. 5, for reference to the tip from Arnesto, Jr.'s mother-in-law Maria Rodriguez de Lopez that he "has a taped conversation with Oswald."
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Thornley%20Kerry/Item%2017.pdf
1962-1963 period: A memo from Andrew Sciambra to Jim Garrison, re interview with David Graydon: "(Graydon) was a very intimate friend of William C. Brady and for a time lived with him. He said he would regard Grady as a definite right winger who was connected with Cuban organizations in the New Orleans area. He was a friend of Arnestro Rodriguez and for a while taught at the Berlitz Language School around 1962 and 1963. He said that Brady also knew Ross Buckley and was very close to Helen Gladstone. Gladstone supposedly has some of Brady's written material and could be very helpful to us concerning Brady. However, Gladstone is a personal friend and very sympathetic towards Shaw. Graydon said that Brady speaks Spanish and French fluently and is a graduate of Harvard University. Brady used to attend Cuban meetings at the International House with Arnesto Rodriguez and Marcel Gomez..." (1968 interview)
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/May%20Hoke%20Notes/Item%2030.pdf
9/25/62, page 6 of 7: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba formed on this date here in New Orleans. Ross Buckley, chairman; Cuthbert Brady vice-chairman; Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr. part of this group. Page 3 of 7 lists Rodriguez as secretary, and a meeting at 1209 St. Charles in Oct 1962.
1993.06.25.18:17:23:900330: LEE HARVEY OSWALD
Late 1963: "T-17 advised as follows...according to the first confidential source abroad, ERNESTO RODRIGUEZ, president of the Modern Language Institute, New Orelans, Louisiana, advised that Oswald contacted him on one occasion during the last week of July or early August, 1963, and inquired concerning a Spanish language institute. Oswald did not take any courses, and Rodriguez had no taped recordings of Oswald's voice. He had no knowledge of Oswald's Spanish-speaking ability."
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/P%20Disk/Pena%20Orestes/Item%2031.pdf
1962 period: Orestes Pena interview: (p. 2), see 19 "Patricia Hoffman, friend of 'deported' English Nazi (Mike Sletter) warned (Pena) Arnesto Rodriguez, Jr. was a bad man (because of his connection with American Nazis)." Also see http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/Martin%20Jack/Item%2007.pdf - Arnesto, Jr. sprang to the defense of George Lincoln Rockwell when he was arrested in New Orleans picketing the release of the movie Exodus.
7/28/60 FBI report by SA Warren DeBrueys on Mario Jose Ramirez Otero. Arnesto Rodriguez, Manager, Berlitz School of Languages, was a confidential informant in New Orleans. Son of AMJUTE-1. Also see https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=166689&search=%22mario_ramirez%22#relPageId=2&tab=page - another confidential informant at the same school was Professor Manuel Renato Masferrer. Also see 124-90089-10198, p. 7: these same two informants listed in another 1960 report on Manny Arquez, co-defendant with Robert McKeown. Also see 124-90089-10198, p. 4: Manuel Renato Masferrer is directly related to Ronaldo Masferrer. Arnesto, Jr. was NO 1213-S - see Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 56; also see 124-10369-10029, p. 95.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/R%20Disk/Rush%20John/Item%2022.pdf
12/2/63 Arnesto Rodriguez provided the FBI with a tape recording and a transcript of the Oswald debate in New Orleans. He created that transcript and he also created versions of the transcript in Spanish. The FBI delivered these items to the airport that day, where an Eastern Airlines flight was met in Washington DC by SAIC Robert Bouck of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service.