Cryptonym: AMRANGE
104-10308-10271: Memorandum: AMRANGE Project
Summary of three memos about Vasco Cecchi and his restaurant in Havana, ending with his imprisonment in 1964 for plotting against the life of Fidel Castro - who had been visiting his restaurant once a month. He received a 30-year sentence. (The Latin American Division officer reviewing the file speculates whether Lt. Ramos - Fidel's contact - could possibly the same person as Jose Menendez Ramos, a defector from the USA to Cuba that was allegedly involved in an alleged pro-Castro plan to kill JFK in 1962.)
8/28/62, Memo from DC/FI/TFW William Tyng to C/TFW William Harvey: Cecchi's Montecatini restaurant in the Vedado quarter of Havana. Cecchi comes from Italy, and his entire family still lives there. Fidel Castro's friend Lt. Ramos lives in the neighborhood. Castro's 20 bodyguards usually arrive 10-15 minutes before he does. Closet partly under the stairs, but a man could be hidden under there comfortably. Last page shows a map of the restaurant and even the closet. A Lt. Ramos lives above the restaurant and he is an "intimate" of Fidel Castro. Fidel comes to visit the lieutenant and have a dinner.
11/18/63, MEXI 6844: Handwriting shows this is one of "()GRIP ops". Castro "arrives with only one escort car...always enters with two companions who eat with him. Escort remains outside. AMTHUG visits kitchen alone, chats with employees. Other patrons are not ejected or disturbed. While inside, AMTHUG is a "sitting duck". ()GRIP comments, "You can draw own conclusions on possibilities."
Gangsters had liked this restaurant for a long time, the Montecatini is listed among a notorious crowd in 1959.
6/25/64, Austin Horn to Director, cites three different plots to kill Castro or other Cuban leaders. Cechhi's Italian citizenship is documented on this card: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16168&relPageId=2
104-10308-10285: INDEX CARDS:SUBJ OWNS MONTECATINI RESTAURANT, CALLE 15
11/1/64 shows Cecchi is in military prison.