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Cryptonym: JMPICK

Definition:

Useppa Island. Site used for the initial screening of the first Cuban volunteers to be prepared as trainers and leaders for insertion into Cuba to contact and organize on island resistance groups. the first - on island resistance. Manuel Artime, accompanied by CIA paramilitary officer Carl Jenkins, took the first ten volunteers to the island in June, 1960

Status:

Probable

Sources:

1993.11.10.08:36:26:340005: Reel 1, Folder L - ARTIME BUESA, MANUEL Document View

Circa May 1960: "The training bases that have been organized had their origin in an interview with Manolo Artime with certain representatives of the American government, and it is most probable that they were from CIA. The first base consisted of a small group that was taken to train on Useppa Island near Fort Myers in May 1960. This initial group, which was very small, consisted principally of students and representatives of Catholic groups in Cuba. At the camp on Useppa Island they were subjected to a series of psychological tests. Afterward they were transferred to Guatemala about the 6th of June..." 2/23/61 interview conducted in Coral Gables, Florida with "G".

John Newman, Countdown to Darkness, pp. 145-146

6/2/60: "According to Haynes Johnson's The Bay of Pigs, the ten-man nucleus of the instructor cadre included Manuel Blanco, Alejandro del Valle, Pepe San Roman, Roberto (San Roman), Miguel Orozco, Hugo Sueiro, Ramon J. Ferrer, '"Chiqui" Garcia Martinez, Osvaldo Piedra, and Alfonso Carol. (On 6/2/60), Artime led the latter eight men in this group - who were all armed - through Miami back yards and alleys to meet 'Carl', a green-eyed man in this thirties who walked with a limp...Shortly after midnight, the group arrived at Useppa, a resort island leased to a Cuban, Freddie Goudie, on behalf of the CIA. There they joined Blanco and Del Valle who were waiting for the group's arrival...'Carl' was obviously Carl Jenkins, who would three weeks later, take these Cubans and others to the US jungle warfare camp area of Fort Glick in Panama." The Cubans from Useppa and Fort Glick wound up by Sept 1960 at Roberto Alejo's mountain plantation above Retalhuleu, Guatemala, where the Trax training camp would be built.

104-10240-10087: CABLE:AMBIDDY AND NINE HEAVILY ARMED YOUNG OFFICERS ARRIVED

6/4/60 cable from JMPICK to Director: "AMBIDDY and nine heavily armed young officers arrived 3 June...Major point of concern is who will serve as top military commander and who will serve furnish general staff function...AMBIDDY returns Miami 4 June. Zaboth will confer him and Goudie/AMWAIL-5/AMTIKI-1 5 June. Plan move 10 more from Army Group night 5 June."

104-10240-10085: CABLE:FOUR AMBIDDY BOYS TAKEN JMPICK MORNING 6 JUNE

6/6/60 cable from MASH to Director, slugline JMNET JMPICK: "Four AMBIDDY boys taken JMPICK morning 6 June. (A) Manuel Garcia Rubio Rodriguez, Sancti Spiritus, Las Villas, and (B) Luis Alberto Beltran Nodarse, 19 May 40 Habana, both listed HQS as in Mexico. Need POA (C) Rene Chavez Perez, 15 May 39, Cumanayagua, Las Villas, and (D) Mario T. Rodriguez Alvarez, 11 Aug 22, Habana. Zaboth/Carl Jenkins taking four regular Army and one from Nino Diaz to JMPICK night 6 June."