Cryptonym: AMSNAP-3

Judiciary Committee Hearings: Testimony of Witnesses, Book III: Henry E. Petersen, Charles W. Colson, and Herbert W. Kalmbach Current Section: Exhibit 1. Memorandum from Richard Helms to the Attorney General, October 24, 1972

"Mr. Martinez was recruited by the Agency in January 1961 in connection with Cuban operations. The project to which he was assigned was terminated in 1969. Since that time, Mr. Martinez has been on a part-time retainer to report on the Cuban exile community."

104-10296-10084: DISPATCH: OPERATIONS FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

2/23/61 cable from Chief of Base, JMWAVE to Chief, JMBELL: "Attached are two copies of a partial accounting of funds provided for AMYUM (MRR - Revolutionary Recovery Movement) operations through AMRUNG-1 (Rogelio Gonzalez y Corso). This accounting was sent to WAVE via AMSNAP-3 on Operation Sandra. On this same operation pesos 15,000 were infiltrated for AMYUM operations..."

Warren Hinckle and William Turner, Deadly Secrets (Thunder's Mouth Press, New York: 1992), p. 152

10/21/63: "(Gordon) Campbell was in charge of the CIA's naval operations in the Caribbean...Captain Alejandro Brooks watched him from the open bridge of the Rex...the 174-foot Rex was the flagship of the CIA's secret Caribbean navy. She was an ex-US Navy patrol craft of early 1940s vintage, formerly engaged in the business of subchasing...the CIA's navy included a sister ship to the Rex, the Leda, plus another four similar ships of the line, and a dozen smaller vessels, all well armed...(the Belcher Oil Company) leased the Rex to Collins Radio International of Dallas for 'electronic and oceanographic research.' Collins was a division of Collins Radio of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a major defense contractor that more than once provided cover for CIA operations." The twelve commandos on 10/21/63 were all members of the Commandos Mambises, "a wholly owned creation of the CIA, and a crash creation at that. They were trained at a CIA amphibious base near New Orleans...(the) imperative to 'do something' was authorized by President Kennedy on June 19 - a greatly escalated program of sabotage aimed at petroleum facilities, railroad and highway transportation, and electric power and communications facilities in Cuba. This led to the CIA's launching its Caribbean secret navy and the creation of the Commandos Mambises. A measure of the White House green light was that for the first time the CIA was allowed to violate the sanctum sanctorum and target previously off-limits installations that had been owned by American companies. It was a major escalation of the Secret War."

104-10093-10175: CABLE - SUGGESTS BASE TAKE NO ACTION

10/26/63 cable from Mexico City to Director, slugline RYBAT TYPIC AMGLOSSY: After the American embassy in Merida got a request for help from AMGLOSSY (Comandos Mambises - a CIA infiltration team designed to set up an intelligence network and a resistance organization inside Cuba during 1963), Mexico City's response was "Mexi suggests base take no action pending WAVE/DIR instructions. Due (to) some recent info that AMGLOSSY Cubans now under Castro control Mexi suggests that normal answer as outlined...be sent..." There is a note saying that "Mr. Tilton SAS notified."

1994.06.17.11:36:40:380005: Reel 47, Folder J - MEXI 6742 - 6899 CABLES.

Autumn of 1963: "Some (Bay of Pigs) veterans were assigned to the 'spook ship' Rex, a 175-foot converted US Navy patrol boat that made hundreds of clandestine voyages to Cuba. Flying the Nicaraguan flag, the Rex operated out of West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It carried the latest radar and sonar equipment, five cannons, several .30 caliber machine guns and two 20-foot speedboats. Its skipper reportedly was Eugenio Rolando Martinez, a Miami real estate salesman and CIA agent who made more than 300 nocturnal runs to Cuba. (He was taken off the official CIA payroll in 1972, the day after he was caught in the Watergate break-in.)...On the night of October 21, 1963, the Rex sent its twin speedboats ashore at the western tip of Cuba. The landing was observed by a militia patrol and the six men in the first boat were captured as soon as they hit the beach. The second launch was sunk by a Cuban gunboat as it raced back to the Rex. Cannon fire from the Rex drove off the Cuban vessel. The men in the water were hauled aboard the spy ship. Next morning, a US Navy submarine surfaced near the Rex off the Bahamas. Five Cubans - four dead, one wounded - reportedly were transferred to the sub, which then submerged and headed to Florida." (4/24/75, Paul Meskil, "A Mission to Cuba: Tale of the Doomed Raiders", NY Daily News)

104-10093-10315: CABLE:AIRMAILING TO PIEPER ADDRESS 3 NOV EDITION NEWSPAPER

November 3, 1963, cable MEXI 6803 from Mexico City to HQ: "Airmailing to Pieper address 3 Nov edition of newspaper Hoy containing detailed account confessions captured Rex expeditionaries." Fabian Escalante, JFK: The Cuban Files (Ocean Press, 2006), p. 244 "October 22 (1963): During the night, Cuban airplanes intercepted and attacked two V-20 pirate launches as they were attempting to land arms and saboteurs in Cuba on the southern coast of Pinar del Rio province. The Cuban aircraft also located and attacked the 'mother ship' that had transported the launches. The enemy action was frustrated in a coordinated air force and coastal defense action. CIA agents Clemente Inclan Werner, chief of security in actions organized against Cuba from the Rex vessel, and crew members Luis Montero Carranza and Roberto Lizano Rodriguez were captured. Spokesmen from the Comandos L stated that Cuban counter-revolutionary groups under CIA direction were given every assistance in their anti-Cuba actions, citing the case of the Mambi Commandos (note: Comandos Mambises), who had engaged in attacks on Cuba from points in US territory." His capture is verified in this CIA memo: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=138561&relPageId=2&search=%22clemente_inclan%22

104-10049-10032: DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN MILITANT EXILE COMMUNITY

6/8/70 cable from WH/Miami to Director: "The Cubanos Unidos group continues to at least make signs of activity. AMSNAP-3 reports that Frank Fiorini (201-242256) has linked himself with the Navarro brothers and Gordon Di Battisto. Fiorini calls himself 'Chief of Intelligence Section of Cubanos Unidos'. Recently a meeting was held at Dupont Plaza Hotel to introduce Americans who are backing the Cubanos Unidos group. The Americans in attendance were Fiorini and Ed Kaiser. AMSNAP-3 believes, as many other Cubans do, that Fiorini and Kaiser may be tied in with Mafia."

104-10096-10131: CARD LISTS RE FRANK STURGIS, E. HOWARD HUNT, ET AL

June 1972: See Card list: At p. 11, "Letter attach #2 which AMSNAP-3/AMCLATTER-1 (Bernard Barker) /Edward J. Hamilton (Howard Hunt) relationship during 1972. 2) MFR (Memorandum for Record) Subj: Review of Significant Factors Covering Station Relations with AMSNAP-3 in the Light of Events of 17 June 1972 (note: the date of the Watergate break-in); p.14: Note of Ed Scott using aliases of Casey, Casid and Kaiser; p.15: (During time of Watergate break-in), Martinez then under contract with Miami $100 a month as informant...Also see https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10096-10131.pdf

104-10164-10000: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10164-10000.pdf

4/19/74 Memorandum for the Record by J. Edwin Dietel, Assistant General Counsel for CIA: (at p. 2 of 83) "...I obtained from Ms. Chris Hopkins, WH/COG (x-1325), copies of (1) a secrecy agreement (in Spanish) by Eugenio Rolando Martinez dated 3 April 1965, (2) an unexecuted contract (an executed copy cannot be located) between the U.S. government and Mr. REDACTED (Bernard L. Barker) (marginalia: Copy located and sent to Mr. DIETL on 24 Apr 1974), and (3) a termination secrecy oath signed by Bernard L. Barker dated 12 August 1966. Copies of those documents are attached...(discussed) the matter with Mr. David Phillips...(at p. 6 of 83) Memorandum for Record by WH/COG/OS Chris Hopkins: ...On 15 April 1974 I gave to Mr. Dietl of OLC the following documents which he requested: Copy of AMSNAP-3's Secrecy Agreement dated 3 April 1975, which I translated for him verbally at the desk..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/03/cuban-spy-watergate-burglar-who-won-presidential-pardon/?utm_term=.cf91ac6b8829

1974-1983: Watergate burglar Rolando Eugenio Martínez was a veteran of more than 300 infiltration missions into Cuba for the CIA during the secret war on Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. He was also the only Watergate burglar still on the agency’s payroll at the time of the break-in. After serving 15 months in jail for his part in the break-in, Martínez returned to Miami on parole in 1974 and was warned by former CIA colleagues that Cuban intelligence might try to recruit him. Three years later, in May 1977, the Cuban pitch came. Thinking Martínez was embittered by his Watergate experience, the Cuban intelligence service (Direccion General de Inteligencia — DGI) requested a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica. (Martinez) remained loyal to the U.S. government and reported the approach to the CIA through agency veteran Felix Rodriguez. He was told to contact the FBI, who approved a double-agent mission to infiltrate Cuban intelligence. After meetings in Mexico and Jamaica, Martínez sailed to Cuba on Castro’s Bluebird yacht and met Interior Minister José Abrantes. He was debriefed for several days in Havana and given a sum of money. According to Rodriguez, the Cubans wanted Martínez to use his heroic status in the Cuban exile community in Miami to support the joint efforts of Cuban exile banker Bernardo Benes and the new Carter administration to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba. Instead, Martínez shared the Cuban plans with the FBI, securing himself a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan in 1983. Reagan denied similar requests from Hunt and Nixon’s deputy campaign chief, Jeb Magruder, causing many to suspect that Martínez’s pardon was a political move intended to strengthen Reagan’s popularity with Cuban voters in Miami ahead of his 1984 reelection campaign...(In 1977 Cuba was pushed into) an elaborate plot, designed by Veciana to sabotage President Jimmy Carter’s push to restore relations with Cuba...Castro didn't take the bait...(but) detente floundered..."

https://this.kiji.is/729174268642623488

02/01/2021: Article in the Miami Herald: Headlined: Eugenio Rolando Martinez, Watergate burglar and former CIA asset in Miami, dies at 98: "MIAMI — Eugenio Rolando Martínez, one of five men whose arrest while burglarizing the Watergate complex in Washington ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, died Saturday surrounded by family in his daughter’s home in the Central Florida city of Minneola. He was 98. Martínez, a CIA contract agent who ran hundreds of covert missions from Miami to his homeland, was among four Miami Cuban exiles recruited by top Nixon aides to break into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters in May and June of 1972 along with a security coordinator for Nixon’s reelection campaign. They were told to tap phones and look for financial connections between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and George McGovern, Nixon’s opponent in his reelection bid...In a column he penned in 1974, Martínez described the scheme as a bungled affair that reminded him of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba — an ill-fated, poorly planned attempt by the CIA to spur revolution by attacking communist dictator Castro’s troops with Cuban exile troops...Martínez, born in July of 1922 in Artemisa, Cuba, was a prolific asset for the U.S. CIA in the 1960s, running hundreds of missions to Cuba from Miami. Martínez’s granddaughter, Michelle Diaz, said Monday that he conducted 365 missions in all. Martínez, who would go on to earn his U.S. citizenship, helped coordinate the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. And though he denied it for years, he was still on the CIA’s payroll at the time of his arrest, a fact revealed in 2016 when the CIA declassified its own 155-page report on the involvement of CIA assets in Watergate." (CONTINUED BELOW)

https://this.kiji.is/729174268642623488

"Two of the other three men from Miami had past ties to the CIA, and the document showed that prosecutors investigating the break-in believed Martínez was an agency spy keeping the agency abreast of Nixon’s political subterfuge. 'Martinez was still on a $100.00 monthly retainer as an informant on the Cuban exile community in the Miami area' at the time of the break-in, stated the CIA’s declassified report, obtained by Judicial Watch. Félix Rodríguez, a former CIA officer and Cuban American exile who was tasked in the 1960s with tracking down Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia, said Monday that Martínez was actually being paid by the CIA in case the agency needed him to captain a CIA boat kept in Miami for travel to Cuba. 'They were paying him to keep a skeleton crew in case the agency needed a quick trip to Cuba to get somebody out. That was his relationship at the time,' said Rodríguez, who lives in Miami. 'Everybody who went to Cuba on the infiltration teams wanted him to bring them in because they knew he would never leave them behind. He always stayed there no matter what the instruction was, risking himself to bring people out. He did that every single time. He was a friend of mine and a hero to me'...After his own release from prison, Martínez worked as a car salesman for Anthony Abraham on Southwest Eighth Street. He was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, becoming the only person embroiled in the Watergate scandal other than Nixon to receive a presidential pardon. Rodríguez, the former CIA officer, said Martínez’s pardon was due to yet another covert mission he ran in Cuba for federal agents following his release from prison...While Martínez will be known first in history books as one of the Watergate burglars, it was this work — his efforts to topple the Castro regime and end a mass exile of Cubans in Miami — that earned Martínez his reputation in his hometown. Martínez was known by his friends in Miami as 'Musculito'"...