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Cryptonym: AMUPAS-1

Definition:
Viola June Cobb, who informed for CIA under crypt AMUPAS-1 while working for Castro, and played a role in the Elena Garro de Paz story, with Mexican crypt LICOOKY-1.
Status:
Documented
Sources:

NARA Record Number: 1993.06.10.09:07:17:530000: INVESTIGATION OF FERNANDO FERNANDEZ'S ALLEGATIONS OF CUBAN ESPIONAGE N

1959-1963 time period: FBI quotes a Feb. 1964 article by Professor Herminio Portell-Vila, recently at the University of Florida, Gainesville campus, in Bohemia Internacionale, "Change of Disguise": "LEE HARVEY OSWALD...returned to the United States after his contacts with the Communist Cuban Ambassadors in Moscow, FAURE CHOMON and CARLOS OLIVARES...'Fair Play', with the aid of JUNE COBB, organized excursions of 'students' and agitators from the United States to visit Communist Cuba, with all expenses paid... " (At p. 34) "It is very strange that a person at his very place of work, where he would be identified in five minutes, would carry out an act of this type from such a place and at the same time attempt to escape. There is no logic in this. There is no sense in this." Researcher and author Tony Summers' notes from 1983 indicate there were five disinformation agents in Mexico City and that Portell-Vila was one of them; four of the five were controlled by David Phillips. http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/Oswald%20Lee%20Harvey%20Mexico/107.pdf

104-10174-10123: MEMORANDUM: CONTINGENT RECRUITMENT OF VIOLA JUNE COBB

6/1/60 memo from Harry Hermsdorf to C/WHD: Great background article on June Cobb, culminating with an agreement between Hermsdorf and Cobb for a meeting later that week for recruitment.

104-10175-10218: COMPARISON OF HANDWRITING-AMUPAS/1 CASE

10/7/60 memo from WH/4/CI Jean Pierson to TSD officer Herman Kimsey, re "comparison of handwriting - AMUPAS-1 case": "It is requested that the two attached documents be compared for similarity in handwriting. It is possible that the letter addressed to 'Little June' was in fact written by the writer of the other document, or that it was written by a third person."

104-10175-10260: NOTES:RESUME AND CV ON JUAN JOSE AREVALO

2/20/61 notes from June Cobb on former Guatemalan president Juan Jose Arevalo, who Cobb was to work with on his book "The Shark and the Sardines". Notes between WH/CA chief Paul Oberst and "Rod" (possibly Alfonso Rodriguez/true name Earl Williamson) asking about Harry Hermsdorf's pitch to Arevalo. Cobb's notes discuss how Arevalo is a socialist and a feminist, not a Marxist. "Admirer of Jefferson, Emerson, FDR and John Dewey."

104-10175-10257: MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD: IN VIEW OF THE RECENT LIFTING OF THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE ATTEMPTED INDUCED

2/28/61 Memorandum for the Record by Jean Pierson: "Other prospective channels to AMDOFF-1 (Castro's personal secretary Juan Orta) are being explored...inside Cuba, certain selected contacts of AMUPAS-1. AMUPAS-1 has been asked to draw up an extension of the sketch already submitted on AMDOFF-1 - a detailed biographic sketch on AMDOFF-1 and his family." 104-10175-10071, March 1961: "...she was given a long list of suggestions for the JMOGRE Operation, with a request to give us as many sketches as she could. She was provided with a portable typewriter and supplies. Subject had brought additional data on Arevalo and (Raul) Osegueda, as well as other items on her trip to Caracas. She also tapes of her interviews with students. This material was subsequently shown to Mr. Duffin, WH/1 chief, which had evidenced an interest in Arevalo. The material was also shown to Mr. Paul Oberst, Paul Oberst, who had previously requested material she had provided on Arevalo and his book." (12/22 release)

104-10218-10185: VIOLA JUNE COBB

9/5/62, Request for Approval or Investigative Action by Sara Prosser to CI/Operational Approval and Support Division: "Subject VIOLA JUNE COBB" also known as "LICOOKY-1 (C) formerly AMUPAS-1; Clarinda E. Sharp alias Joyce H. PINEINCH (P)"

Mary's DB Cobb entry

Following assassination, Cobb spent several days in home of Sra. Elena Garro de Paz in Mexico City (former wife of Mexican poet Octavio Paz). Cobb sent by a mutual friend, Eunice Odio, a Costa Rican and Cobb's roommate by Dec. 1965. Odio was former mistress of Dr. Jose Vasquez Ameral when he was with Rockefeller Foundation. HSCA asked CIA why there was no "P" file on her. "The name June Cobb as a double agent appears in the Rorke papers... Cobb forced, in the fall of 1960, a cousin of ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to have an abortion when 'Lodge's' cousin (Marita Lorenz ?) was six months' pregnant with Fidel Castro's child"

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Contributors:
MFF • Bill Simpich

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