Secret agent man dallied once too often
Commentary by Pat Murphy
With 40 years to cool off since the botched 1961 Bay of
Pigs invasion, Cubans and Americans are now sharing secrets of their dirty
tricks, including the CIA assassination plot against Fidel Castro and
sabotage of Cuban facilities.
As a reporter and editor with The Miami Herald, I remember
those as golden days for journalists to sniff out intrigue between the two
countries and the going-and-coming of spies across the Florida Straits.
So, it’s probably okay to tell of an episode involving a
friend working in the spook trade in those days.
Roger – I’ll keep his last name confidential –
worked for a company named Zenith (not the big radio and TV manufacturer)
that operated out of the old, deserted Richmond blimp base south of Miami
near Homestead.
Businesses in the area that cashed payday checks were told
Zenith employees were "personnel specialists."
But most everyone suspected Zenith was a Central
Intelligence Agency front: employees worked mostly at night, facilities
were off limits, workers never discussed their jobs and the Miami area was
rife with tales of CIA operations at the blimp base.
Indeed, Roger’s job, as we learned later, was to
surreptitiously slip CIA operatives into Cuba by boat and airdrops to
sabotage and spy.
But Roger was careless in his personal life. Although
married, he began an affair with the estranged wife of a friend. The woman
also was a friend of Roger’s wife.
What Roger didn’t know was that the husband hired
private detectives to gather evidence of adultery so he could divorce his
wife and lessen his financial obligations in those days before no-fault
divorces.
So, one night before dawn when Roger finished his CIA work
and slipped into the woman’s home, their customary nocturnal dalliance
was interrupted by private detectives who entered the house with the
husband’s keys.
Detectives snatched Roger’s wallet from his trousers
hanging on a chair and fled ¾ later to find identification revealing
Roger’s real occupation.
Roger, his wife and family vanished within a matter of
days, presumably whisked from their considerable Florida social circle and
rushed out of town by the CIA.
We never learned if Roger retrieved his wallet or, more
important, whether he explained to his wife who picked his pockets and
where.
#
One wonders what defense a Bellevue man will use in court
to explain why he allegedly fired 10 rounds from a Chinese-made SKS 7.62
mm battlefield assault rifle in the direction of bathers near Carey Hot
Springs.
Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling quotes the man as
saying that after his dog and another got into a fight, he lost it and
began shooting ¾ but not directly AT the bathers, only over their heads.
Well, anyone who knows what an SKS is (an offshoot of the
famed Russian AK-47 weapon), knowing that someone is firing over your
head, but not directly at you, is hardly comforting.
The SKS firepower is deadly. Its shots are ear-shattering.
A burst of shells can tear a human body in half. It’s designed to
slaughter combat soldiers.
Should we be relieved and feel safe knowing that an SKS
owner living in the Wood River Valley will only fire over people’s heads
when he can’t control his temper?
