Cryptonym: WILDCAT
He was Chief of Intelligence for Brigade 2506: https://theoswaldcode.com/bernardo_de_torres.pdfp. 10 of 40.
Bernardo de Torres was involved in activities in Mexico in the late 1960's, and early 1970's. Moreover, in 1967 Bernardo de Torres joined the investigation of New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison.
See 180-10141-10241, p. 8: Bernardo Gonzalez de la Torres Alvarez, 3/26/34, Havana, Cuba, 201-294213 (Fonzi’s informant “Carlos”). Also see 124-10369-10029, p. 237 for more background.
Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, pp. 87-88: "De Torres repeatedly fed (Jim Garrison) disinformation: that Oswald was in Tampa when President Kennedy was there, four days before Oswald went to Dallas...that a man named Rafael Mola had flown to Cuba 'a few days after the Smith event', information that came to de Torres, he claimed, through 'an agent of the 26th of July'. None of this went anywhere...Garrison cut de Torres loose. On the morning of March 2, 1967, de Torres gave the CIA his final report on Jim Garrison. On paper, the Agency says it told de Torres to take this information to the FBI. Meanwhile, they informed their own Soviet section, as well as the FBI. For the HSCA, Gaeton Fonzi discovered that de Torres' CIA handler had been Paul Bethel..."
104-10182-10052: CIA FILE ON WIROGUE.
06/30/61: Cable from Leopoldville to Director: Slugline RYBAT WIROGUE: Page 2: ...C/S Comment: *Re backstopping WIROGUE/David Tzitzichvili since WILDCAT is making detailed check on him." - - - See 104-10182-10052, p. 102: 07/05/61: Cable from Leopoldville to Director: Slugline RYBAT WIROGUE: IMMEDIATE ACTION: REF: DIR 48429 (OUT 71923): "1. Can arrange visa WIROGUE/1 in Brazza. Most direct flight PBPRIME (U.S.) Panam from LEOP. LEOP recognizes need for most direct travel W/1 but to maintain security (prevent any future check by WILDCAT revealing W/1 travel PBPRIME) and still provide 72 hour prior notice suggest following: A. W/1 depart 7 July from Brazza to Rome via KLM. B. W/1 be contacted Rome by KUBARKER (CIA). When WIROGUE reservations Rome to PBPRIME firm form notify HQs giving required 72 hour lead time. 2. LEOP will advance travel money and W/1 to buy own ticket. Advise. 3. Rome: if HQs approves will need contact instructions. C/S Comment: *HQs gave suggestions and guidance to decrease risk of WIROGUE/1 arrest and possible compromise KUBARK." https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=226757#relPageId=102&search= - - - See 124-10332-10032 - p. 34 - 8/22/63 - de Torres, military director of the Association of Veterans of the Bay of Pigs Brigade told the FBI that NYC Cubans had enlisted in the Brigade - in the midst of Masferrer's attempt to invade Cuba. Also see 124-10332-10045 - p. 20.
John Simkin, "The Continuing Inquiry" - https://www.facebook.com/groups/JFK.thecontinuinginquiry/permalink/2859337144118962/
Re 11/22/63: Gaeton Fonzi was employed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) as a staff investigator. This involved him interviewing Rolando Otero (aka Orlando Otero) - a militant anti-Castro Cuban: "Otero said his source had told him that Lee Harvey Oswald was sent to Russia as a CIA agent. The decision to kill Kennedy was made before Oswald's return to the United States. Otero said he had no specific knowledge of the number involved, but his training led him to guess there were between thirty and thirty-five CIA operatives in Dallas on the day Kennedy was killed, including the actual hit team.... Otero said he understood that most of the final planning and coordination took place at meetings held in the Dallas YMCA Building, and he gave me the names of five Miami men who, according to his source, were involved in the plot. He said he didn't know the roles that four of them played, but the fifth, the one called Carlos, was in contact with Oswald and was posing as a photographer in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd." Fonzi later admitted that Otero told him that "Carlos" was Bernardo De Torres. The (HSCA) came to the conclusion that De Torres might have played a role in the death of John F. Kennedy. It said: "De Torres has pictures of Dealey Plaza in a safe-deposit box. These pictures were taken during the assassination of JFK". When he appeared before the HSCA De Torres denied any involvement in the case. Interestingly, De Torres told Owen Brand, a colleague in the drug trade, in the early 1980s: “He told me once he had photographs of Dealey Plaza during the Kennedy assassination tucked away in a safe deposit box. He also admitted to a close friend of mine that he knew Lee Harvey Oswald. It has been reported that he showed up at Silvia Odio’s house in Dallas with Oswald. His list of connections included mafia dons Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello, who were both linked to the Kennedy assassination. Bernie took his secrets to the grave."
08/20/66: FBI memo from Miami to HQ: Subject: Asociacion de Veteranos de Bahia..."On August 20, 1966, MM T-2, a Cuban exile who has contacts with certain leaders of the AVBC, advised that Bernardo de Torres, military coordinator of the AVBC, has been involved in discussions with other Cuban exiles concerning a plan to attack a Soviet ship in waters off the southeast coast of Florida. MM T-2 said that the last discussion in which he participated was about one week ago, and that the general idea of this plan was to utilize a small boat disguised as a fishing vessel with guns such as recoilless cannon, machine gun or bazooka, concealed under fishing equipment under the bottom of the boat in order to get safely out of Miami waters. MM T-2 said that no particular Soviet vessel was mentioned as a target nor was there mention of a possible date for the attack or of a boat to be used as the attacking vessel. Bernardo de Torres, 110 N.W. 41st Avenue, Miami, Florida, military coordinator of the AVBC, advised on August 20, 1966, that the AVBC had been discussing a plan to make an attack on a Soviet vessel, and that these plans were proceeding although he declined to furnish any other details concerning these plans. De Torres said they hope to evade United States Government agencies which might attempt to interfere with the departure of this operation. He said the AVBC and associated groups have discussed various types of military activities and they plan to continue to do so. De Torres expressed a desire for assistance from the United States Government through CIA, Washington, expressing distrust in CIA. Miami, pointing out that their contact men in Miami are all Cubans. With or without assistance of the United States, they plan to proceed, but De Torres mentioned that if the United States would help them, they would be able to establish a base outside the United States territory..."
02/20/67: Department of Justice memo from Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Fred M. Vinson, Jr., to the Director of the FBI: Subject: Assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas: "With regard to your memorandum to the Acting Attorney General of February 20, 1967, it is noted that news releases of today have mentioned two additional persons as having some knowledge of these events. Accordingly, it is requested the Bureau determine from its files what, if any, information it may have on Bernardo Torres (allegedly an aide to the Secret Service during the Miami tour of President Kennedy) and David Lewis (described as a bus station express handler who was formerly as private investigator)." 02/26/67, at http://www.larry-hancock.com/documents/chapter%2018/Exhibit18-7p01.jpg: Garrison investigation memo from Louis Ivon to Jim Garrison, New Orleans District Attorney: Subject: Telephone Conversation with Alberto Fowler: "On February 24, 1967, Alberto Fowler...received a telephone call from Bernado Torres in Miami (who) stated the person who had given him the information about the photographs was assassinated in Miami Wednesday night...a group of Cubans tried to escape last night from Miami but were captured by the Coast Guard and are being held. Bill Gervich (said) the name of the man who was murdered was Eladio Seferino Del Valle, Cuban, 43 years of age, who was a Batista Congressman. He was shot in the chest and it appears to be 'gang-land style' and his body was left in the vicinity of Bernado Torres' apartment. Bernardo Torres can be reached in Miami..."
02/20/67: FBI memo from W. A. Branigan to W. C. Sullivan: “'The Washington Post' on 2/20/67 carried article captioned 'Assassination Report Will Grow, Cuban Says.' Article in summary states that Bernardo Torres, Cuban exile and military coordinator of Brigade 2506, anti-Castro group, stated he helped Secret Service guard President Kennedy in Miami, Florida, four days before the assassination. Torres, a private detective who has been helping New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in an investigation looking toward reopening the Kennedy assassination case, stated he believes the Warren Report will be proved incomplete. Pursuant to the Director’s request concerning Bernardo Torres, Burrill Peterson, Assistant to the Director, Secret Service, was contacted by liaison on 2/20/67. Peterson stated that he contacted the Secret Service Special Agent in Charge in Miami, John Marshall, concerning the above-mentioned news article. Peterson advised that President Kennedy was in Miami on November 18, 1963, and spoke at the Orange Bowl. Since there were rumors prevalent that some Cubans might try to embarrass the President, Secret Service contacted several Cuban groups before the Kennedy visit and asked for their assistance. Brigade 2506 was one of the groups contacted but Secret Service did not talk to Torres...Our files indicate that Torres is identical with Bernardo Gonzalez de Torres Alvarez, Cuban exile born 3/26/34 in Cuba and military coordinator of Brigade 2506. Torres participated in the April, 1961, invasion of Cuba and has been periodically reported as being involved in plans of Brigade 2506 to launch attacks on Cuba and vessels trading with Cuba. He has been interviewed on several occasions and has been cooperative." Also see bottom of page, identical with FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 113, p 3: Hoover writes: "Be certain - don't use de Torres as an informant in any capacity." Reiterated on 3/6/67, Section 115, p. 64.
104-10009-10011: STATEMENTS MADE BY ABREU, CUBAN INTEL OFFICER IN MEXICO CITY AN
3/13/67: "MM T-1 (probably Luis Salazar) says that he was questioned by Abreu/LIRING-1 about the JFK shooting, but that he had no real opinion. Abreu then told him that "personnel at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico knew Oswald and that Oswald was not as good a rifle marksman as the FBI believed he was. Abreu said that Oswald and persons from the Cuban Embassy had gone shooting on the outskirts of Mexico City and a sixteen year old Cuban outshot Oswald." Abreu's secretary Araceli Mastrapa said that it was her understanding that Bernardo Torres had developed evidence showing that a Cuban refugee group had shot JFK...Bernardo Torres has been described in the press as a Cuban private investigator in Miami who has been assisting District Attorney James Garrison..." See 1993.08.07.13:42:36:590015, p. 72: WINS in NYC newsman Doug Edelson stated that Garrison believed JFK was killed by four execution groups directed by Castro post-Bay of Pigs. The story was that one group was captured and questioned in NYC, said New Orleans group included LHO, Ferrie and Shaw. 4/24/64 interview: FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 155, p. 12 (another version at CE 1444, p. 893 of 962): Attorney Stanley Ross told by Spanish consul Banon that terrorist Pascual Gongora told him during an interview in NYC that "he was one of five or six groups sent to the United States to assassinate President Kennedy at the direction of Fidel Castro..." 4/6/67 - 124-10369-10048, page 149 of 277: Dean Andrews reported to the FBI in 1967 that Jim Garrison had got ahold of Gongora's story (which is within the 26 WC volumes) and tried to utilize it for his own purposes. It is probable that Bernardo de Torres got wind of the Gongora story and used it to his own devices to make Garrison's life miserable while he worked as a Garrison investigator in 1967.
104-10070-10180: CABLE CONCERNING TELEPHONE CALL
12/04/69: Cable from Mexico City to Director: LITEMPO: "1. LITEMPO-12 (Miguel Nazar Haro) received telephone call from Miami evening of 2 Dec from one Bernardo de Torres who identified himself as 'Pentagon Intelligence' to report that a Swiss national residing in Mexico City, one Jean Louis Crossier, is engaged in arms contraband from U.S. De Torres gave Crossier’s address as Hotel Guardiola, Room 305, Calle Madero No. 5, Mexico City. LITEMPO-12 verified address, found Crossier lives there with his mother and no RPT and no evidence could be found that he engaged in illegitimate business. LITEMPO files show no derog on Crossier. No Station traces either Crossier or de Torres. 2. Would appreciate traces on Bernardo de Torres and Jean Louis Crossier. PLS indicate what may be passed liaison. 3. File defer."
104-10071-10311: MEMO FOR THE RECORD - ROLANDO MASFERRER, JR.
06/12/72: Memo for the record from Jeffrey G. Peterson: Pages 3-4: ..."8. Subject travelled again to Mexico in March 1972 with Bernardo DE Torres. (Mexico 2038, 4 December 1969, mentions that LITEMPO-12 (Miguel Nazar Haro), WH/MIAMI, received a phone call from one Bernardo De Torres regarding a supposed Swiss contraband arms dealer in Mexico City). Nazar had invited Masferrer to return to Mexico to go on a 'hunting party', that is, to participate in an actual counter-insurgency operation. Masferrer and De Torres arrived in Acapulco and were met by Bravo. They travelled by police vehicle for about an hour east of Acapulco to an area near La Treintas (NFI). Just before they arrived they heard on the police radio that the Army had just 'shot down' a twin-engine Beachcraft. When they arrived, a search of the wreckage yielded a few weapons. A short firefight (about 15 minutes) ensued with insurgents that left two soldiers dead. Masferrer said he did not know the number of insurgent casualties. One insurgent was captured along with his .45 caliber pistol...10. Masferrer said that later, upon Nazar’s orders, the American prisoner was shot and killed. The whole affair was never reported in the local press because, according to Masferrer, such information, if revealed, would damage the area’s tourist trade."
1993.08.03.07:53:10:590037: MEMO RE BERNARDO GONZALES DE TORRES ALVAREZ (AKA BERNARDO C. DE TORRES
05/12/78: Memo for the record from William C. Sturbitts: Subject: Bernardo Gonzalez de Torres Alvarez (aka Bernardo G. de Torres) DPOB: 26 March 1934, Havana, Cuba: "Subject enlisted in the 2506 Brigade in Miami, Florida, in February 1961. He was subsequently captured on 17 April 1961 at Playa Giron, Cuba, returned to the United States on 24 December 1962 along with other members of the 2506 Brigade who were ransomed...Subject's file reveals no CIA operational use of Subject following the cancellation of his POA on 4 April 1962. File: 201-294213." - - - Other documents confirm Bernardo de Torres' 201 number: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=151057&search=201-294213#relPageId=3&tab=page ; https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=37168&relPageId=2&search=201-294213 ; https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41032&relPageId=3&search=201-294213 ; https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=46022&relPageId=6&search=201-294213 Also see http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/180-10116-10318.pdf - page 32 of 146 - during the 1970s, de Torres was the Latin American representative for the Military Armaments Corporation, cofounded by Mitch Werbell/AMBOAR and based in Powder Springs, GA. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Armament_Corporation
104-10332-10002: ARRB-CIA ISSUES: CRYPTONYMS
11/01/93: Memo from Joanne Harris to Withheld, C/MRS/LA/MRS: Subject: JFK Project - Review of Cuban Files: "I reviewed 106 files to ascertain the status of Cuban assets which were listed in the attached. Seventeen were found to be former assets, pre-1970, and most of the seventeen were involved in the Bay of Pigs Operation. Additionally, the following five appear to be candidates for protection from public disclosure...b. WILDCAT - 201-294213: FBI Double Agent. (CIA) assisted in ops in Mexico. He was still active as of March 1982..."
https://deepstateblog.org/tag/bernardo-de-torres/ Source: Bernardo De Torres, Bay of Pigs Veteran and Kennedy Assassination Spy, Is Dead | Miami New Times
05/15/2019: Article on the Deep State Blog by Jefferson Morley: Titled: RIP: Bernardo De Torres, Bay of Pigs Veteran and CIA-Linked Drug Trafficker: "Trained by the CIA and then cut loose, Bernardo De Torres exemplified what is known as the 'disposal problem' in secret intelligence work: What do you do with the people who have been trained for covert action and violent 'regime change' operations after U.S. policy fails or changes? How do you dispose of them? De Torres, who died homeless last December, according to Miami New Times, was once flamboyant and notorious. He served as the chief of intelligence of the the CIA-trained invasion force that was routed at the Bay of Pigs. Taken prisoner, he was valuable enough to be ransomed for $50,000. Throught his life, he dropped hints he knew secrets about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, although this was never confirmed. DeTorres continued to serve the CIA in an undercover capacity. In 1967, after the U.S. government had given up trying to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro and he face deportation proceedings, he infiltrated the JFK assassination investigation of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. While purporting to work for Garrison, he fed information back to the CIA. The agency, it turned out, had a lot to hide about JFK’s assassination. By 1972, he was selling arms and offering U.S narcotics agents if they wanted to hire him an informant on Mexican drug traffickers. By the late 1970s, he was drug trafficker himself, according to his friend Owen Band. Band recalls meeting the man and how he introduced him to the trade. Bernie was sitting there with his back to the wall at his permanent table, Johnny Black in hand, with three ice cubes." (CONTINUED BELOW).
https://deepstateblog.org/tag/bernardo-de-torres/ Source: Bernardo De Torres, Bay of Pigs Veteran and Kennedy Assassination Spy, Is Dead | Miami New Times
"He wore a black polyester Members Only jacket, a black shirt, and muted grey slacks, his cordovan half-boots barely containing his Beretta. He unconsciously fingered the green and yellow Santeria beads wrapped around his wrist as he stood up to greet me and shook my hand. 'My name is Bernie,' he said. 'You want to do some coke? Soon, it became a nightly affair, then a ritual. Bernie and I sat together, kept a room in the hotel above the club, womanized, snorted cocaine, and hung out with whichever cocaine trafficker or celebrity was visiting the club. Did his CIA connections provide protection from law enforcement? They couldn’t have hurt. Band says that De Torres dealt in large quantities of cash, was questioned in several Miami homicide cases, and protected him from imminent arrest by providing him with secret grand jury information. CIA connections protected Guiillermo Tabraue, another Bay of Pigs veteran involved in large-scale trafficking. Tabraue and his son Mario were arrested in 1987 and charged with masterminding a cocaine and marijuana trafficking network worth $75 million. (Also nabbed in the operation was Orlando Cicilia, brother-in-law of GOP Sen. Marco Rubio; Cicilia was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement.) As Mother Jones reported in 2014, Guillermo Tabraue’s charges were reduced to tax evasion, after a witness testified that Guillermo had been an informant for the CIA. The CIA would continue to do business with Cuban-American drug traffickers long after it had cut ties with De Torres and Tabraue. In the 1980s, when the CIA sought to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, agency personnel enlisted seven businesses and more than 50 individuals credibly suspected of drug trafficking, according to a 1999 report by CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz. In the CIA scheme of things, De Torres was not unusual. He embodied the symbiotic relationship of the CIA, drug traffickers, and regime change operations."