Pseudonym: Davis, Ricardo
104-10425-10075: CARD INDEX TO HSCA REQUESTS
CIA index card identifies "Ricardo Davis" and "Rudolph Richard Davis" as alternative names used by Richard Rudolph Davis.
104-10429-10069: CLAY L. SHAW'S TRIAL AND THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Re 1960-1963: "Rudolph Ricardo Davis might testify about a training camp across the lake from New Orleans, possibly at Lacombe, Louisiana, and that connected with this camp were Victor Paneque/AMRUG-5 and Fernando Fernandez. Davis claims he met Oswald in the fall of 1963 in connection with anti-Cuban activities...The Fernandez mentioned by Davis was also identified by Michael W. Laborde as being the head of the Cuban organization for which Lawrence J. Laborde, his father, had worked. Fernandez was a contact of the Miami Station from December 1960 to January 1966. Lawrence Laborde was a contact of the Miami Station in 1961 and 1962 and served as an officer on a ship used for CIA Cuban operations." 9/29/67 memo from CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston to the CIA Director.
1961-1963: Richard Davis said after the dynamite was seized in Lacombe, LA a number of men went back to Miami for military training, including Victor Paneque/AMRUG-5. Davis coordinated between the Lacombe men and the New York Police Department -an odd relationship. He was born in NY but lived in Cuba most of his life and was a Cuban alien involved in litigation to re-establish his citizenship. (10/2/63 FBI interview of Rudolph Richard Davis, Jr. of New Orleans, born 9/9/34 in Manhattan, NY) Davis' relationship with NYPD was probably linked with BOSSI, the Special Services unit that investigated cases such as Malcolm X. Also see: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Civil%20Actions/JFK-MLK%20Appeals%20Subjects/PA%20Appeals/PA%20Appeals%2002.pdf - page 5 of 10: Davis worked with the same NYPD unit as Jack Caulfield of Watergate fame.
180-10145-10158: 180-10145-10158
6/23/63 FBI report (from notes of HSCA staffer Jonathen Blackmer): "Bartes alleges Rudolph Richard Davis - Lee Harvey Oswald & Minutemen - (Davis) met Lee Harvey Oswald twice, once handing out handbills and once went to his house...(Victor) Paneque in charge of camp, Carlo DeArmas - nearby farm. Shaw in May 9, 1961 program chairman who introduces Charles Cabell from New Orleans Foreign Policy Association." "6/23/63 FBI report: "(Frank Bartes/AMSERF-1) alleges Rudolph Richard Davis - Lee Harvey Oswald & Minutemen - (Davis) met Lee Harvey Oswald twice, once handing out handbills and once went to his house...(Victor) Paneque/AMRUG-5 in charge of camp, Carlo DeArmas - nearby farm. Shaw in May 9, 1961 program chairman who introduces Charles Cabell from New Orleans Foreign Policy Association."(see p. 2, HSCA staffer Jonathan Blackmer's notes, 1978)
Larry Hancock, Tipping Point, Chapter 1: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part1.html
Summer 1963: By summer the ongoing competition between the various exile groups added to the overall chaos among the Cuban community. It also led to anomalies such as the June, 1963 creation of a transit training camp outside New Orleans. Ostensibly the camp was to train volunteers from the Christian Democrat (MDC) group who would go on to Nicaragua to join in new missions against Cuba. As it turned out some twenty volunteers arrived outside New Orleans, only to find a run-down house with no operating utilities – making it livable was their first order of business. Afterwards their only "training" was physical training; three or four old WWII rifles were available but with no ammunition. The rifles were never fired. The MDC camp operated for about four or five weeks before an FBI raid on another set of buildings some distance away led to a rapid evacuation – with the volunteers quickly put on a bus back to Miami. The only contact the men had was with an American living in New Orleans, Ricardo Davis, who had helped organize the whole thing and brought food to the camp on occasion. [ 120 ] Davis had formerly been associated with Gerry Hemming, Frank Sturgis and the short lived INTERPEN effort. Apparently he had promised the MDC major financial backing for the new training camp, none of which had never appeared.
124-10369-10059: ADMIN FOLDER-Z9: HSCA ADMINISTRATIVE FOLDER, LHO NEW ORLEAN
Re summer of 1963: New Orleans FBI memo - "(Carlos Quiroga) stated that on May 9, 1967, he was contacted by Salvador Panzeca, attorney for Clay Shaw...Panzeca stated that Garrison will attempt to show that Quiroga and (Carlos Bringuier) were at an anti-Castro training camp on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain with Lee Harvey Oswald. This camp was reportedly run by a man named Richard Davis and persons there were being trained to burn sugar cane in Cuba."
104-10105-10196: NOVEL PACKAGE: KENNEDY ASSASSINATION - GARRISON - 1967, FOLDER #3
Summer of 1963: "...Richard Rudoph DAVIS apparently managed the training camp that was operated on the far side of Lake Pontchartrain in July 1963. What was the CIA relationship with him? Is he associated with the "Free Cuba Committee"? There is no association between DAVIS and CIA, nor has there been. CIA had nothing to do with the training site on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, near Lacombe, La. FBI reporting has listed DAVIS, a Cuban, as a New Orleans delegate of the Christian Democratic Movement (MDC) but has also quoted one other Cuban as saying that DAVIS was not an MDC delegate. This source and others characterize DAVIS as a heavy drinker with a vivid imagination. Is DAVIS associated with the Free Cuba Committee? Our files do not contain the answer. It is requested that WH/COG respond." 28 SEP 1967 memorandum from Donavan E. Pratt, DC/CI/R&A; SUBJECT: Garrison Investigation: Queries from Justice Department -
FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 125
1967: Attorney Dean Andrews had been talking with Jim Garrison in late 1963 and again in 1966-1967. On 4/6/67, FBI memo from New Orleans to DC, case 89-69: "Andrews stated when first contacted by Garrison he was convinced Garrison had something on the assassination of President Kennedy. Later from conversations, he became suspicious and to test Garrison furnished the names Manuel Cortez, Ricardo Davis and Manuel Garcia Gonzales, which names are fictitious and he does not know anyone by those names.
Harold Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, p. 378
Mid-August 1963: Davis knew Oswald. He was introduced by Carlos Quiroga. Although the official documents, save for one, would indicate that Quiroga's attempt to "penetrate" Oswald's phony "Fair Play For Cuba Committee" was a one-man effort, Davis acknowledges he did, in fact, accompany Quiroga as one of the two people who went to Lee Harvey Oswald’s house on Magazine St. to find out what he was up to after his August 16, 1963 distribution of literature.
Summer 1963: "Davis advised that he is neither a representative or a delegate of the MDC...He is merely a friend of Laureano Batista of the MDC in Miami...the camp was broken up because the FBI found a cache of dynamite on the other side of the lake from New Orleans that was in the general vicinity of the other camp...(Davis) did say that the national representative of the John Birch Society in the southeast region had been a frequent visitor to the training camp across the lake from New Orleans when it existed some time ago...Davis advised that some nineteen men had been sent by Laureano Batista from Miami to New Orleans...Davis claimed these men thought they were coming for military training and then would go to Guatemala for more training...when they learned that it was a lumber company business they were disappointed...Davis was vice president of the Guatemalan Lumber and Minerals Corporation, with a contract to export mahogany from Guatemala (p. 20) Carlos Bringuier said he was a member of the MDC in exile. (Report of Warren deBrueys, 7/3/64)
6/29/64 FBI letterhead memo: "Alberto Fernandez/AMDENIM-1, 255 Buttonwood Drive, Key Biscayne, Florida, a member of an anti-Castro organization known as Unidad Revolucionaria (UR)...stated that he knew Rudolph Davis as a resident of Cuba, as a member of MDC for several years and as a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana...Fernandez advised that Davis has a reputation of being a heavy drinker and an individual with a vivid imagination and very few people pay any attention to anything which Davis says." Enrique Abascal of NYC stated that Davis was a member of the New Orleans MDC but with no responsibilities - and also described Davis as a promoter and a hustler.