David Sánchez Morales - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

David Sánchez Morales (August 26, 1925 - May 8, 1978) was a Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

operative who worked in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

Biographical highlights

Morales, of Mexican

Mexican people

Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

descent, spent his early life in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

, and attended school at Arizona State College in Tempe (now Arizona State University

Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...

) and the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

before joining the Army

Army

An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...

in 1946. He served in the 82nd Airborne, and was recruited into US Army intelligence during that time. Morales maintained an Army 'cover' even after joining the Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

in 1951.

Shortly after joining the CIA, Morales became an operative for the CIA's Directorate for Plans

National Clandestine Service

The National Clandestine Service is one of the four main components of the Central Intelligence Agency...

. It's alleged that he was involved in Executive Action

Executive Action

Executive Action is a 1973 movie about the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, written by Dalton Trumbo, Donald Freed and Mark Lane, and directed by David Miller. The film opened to a storm of controversy over the depiction of the assassination: in some places in the U.S., the film ran...

, a series of projects designed to kill foreign leaders deemed unfriendly to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Morales reportedly was involved in Operation PBSUCCESS

Operation PBSUCCESS

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala....

, the CIA covert operation that overthrew the democratically-elected President of Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán

Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán

Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as Defense Minister of Guatemala from 1944–1951, and as President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954....

. During that operation he acquired a reputation as the CIA's top assassin

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

.

Through the 1960s and mid-1970s, Morales was involved at top levels in a variety of covert projects, including JMWAVE

JMWAVE

JMWAVE or JM/WAVE or JM WAVE was the codename for a major secret United States covert operations and intelligence gathering station operated by the CIA from 1961 until 1968...

, the ZRRIFLE plot to assassinate Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

, the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

operation, the CIA's secret war in Laos

CIA activities in Laos

-Politics of Laos and the CIA:A 1962 Time Magazine article about Laos makes some points that help understand the context of the overt and covert actions of all sides in Laos before the Vietnam War....

, the capture of Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

, and the overthrow of Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

. He worked closely with Tracy Barnes

Tracy Barnes

Charles Tracy Barnes was a senior staff member at the United States' Central Intelligence Agency , serving as principal manager of CIA operations in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion....

, William D. Pawley

William D. Pawley

William D. Pawley was a U.S. ambassador, a noted businessman and associated with the Flying Tigers American Volunteer Group during World War II.-Early life:...

, David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose to become the CIA's chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere...

, John Martino, Johnny Roselli, and the infamous Ted Shackley.

Involvement with the Kennedy assassinations

Some researchers (among them Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, Noel Twyman, and John Simkin) believe that Morales was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

. Sanchez's friend Ruben Carbajal

Ruben Carbajal

Rubén Carbajal is a Mexican American actor who has appeared on many television series. His most watched appearance was a mini series Kingpin. In this series, Carbajal worked with actors such as Yancey Arias, Sheryl Lee, Bobby Cannavale, Angela Alvarado Rosa, and many more...

claimed that in 1973 Morales opened up about his involvement with the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

operation, and stated that "Kennedy had been responsible for him having to watch all the men he recruited and trained get wiped out." Carbajal claims that Morales added, "Well, we took care of that SOB, didn't we?" It's been suggested that Morales was the 'Latin-looking' man seen with Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

in New Orleans in 1963. Numerous employees of New Orleans taverns saw Oswald with a man matching the appearance of Morales, as well as witnesses to Oswald's baffling public leafleting for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee

Fair Play for Cuba Committee

The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was an activist group set up in New York in April 1960. The FPCC's purpose was to provide grassroots support for the Cuban Revolution against attacks by the United States government, once Fidel Castro began openly admitting his commitment to Marxism and began the...

.

Morales is alleged to have once told friends, "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch, and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard", presumably referring to the assassination of JFK in Dallas, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

on November 22, 1963 and then the later assassination of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

on June 5, 1968. Bradley Ayers

Bradley Ayers

-Biography:After a stint in the Army, Ayers was recruited by the Department of Defense in 1962 to work with the CIA training anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Ayers was stationed at JMWAVE and collaborated with Alpha 66. He also took part in Operation Mongoose. After the assassination of John F...

, a former CIA operative, told the Assassination Records Review Board

Assassination Records Review Board

The Assassination Records Review Board was created as a result of an act passed by the US Congress in 1992, entitled the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act." The Act mandated the gathering and release of all US Government records related to the Assassination of John F....

in 1995 that he had found a credible witness who could place Morales at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night RFK was murdered.

In addition, E. Howard Hunt

E. Howard Hunt

Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...

confessed just prior to his death to his son St. John Hunt that he and several others, including Morales, William King Harvey

William King Harvey

William King "Bill" Harvey was a Central Intelligence Agency officer, best known for his role in Operation Mongoose. He was known as "America's James Bond."...

, Cord Meyer

Cord Meyer

Cord Meyer, Jr. was an American Central Intelligence Agency official.-Early life:Meyer's father, Cord Meyer Sr., was a diplomat and former real estate developer. His grandfather, also called Cord Meyer, was a property developer and a chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. He was...

, and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

, were involved in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

External links

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