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Cryptonym: AMANCHOR-1

Definition:
Alberto Beguiristain, frogman for the CIA in the 1960s, and an associate of Rolando Martinez (the anti-Castro Cuban activist who was one of the Watergate burglars in 1972). He was also an associate of Manuel Villamanan (AMFAUNA-13).
Status:
Documented
Discussion:
Beguiristain came from one of the wealthiest families in Cuba, and remained involved in the anti-Castro cause for much of his adult life.

A 1973 cable, not seen, apparently links AMANCHOR-1 with Artime (104-10095-10326) Described as part of RYBAT/JMSPUR/PLVWCADET traffic - matters embarrassing to the CIA.

Shane O'Sullivan mentioned Alberto Beguiristain/AMANCHOR-1 on page 410 of his 2018 book, Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA.
Sources:

104-10076-10368: CABLE: RE INFORMATION CONCERNING SUPPORT AND INTERMEDIATE CRAFTS AND THEIR MISSIONS

12/11/63: Cable WAVE 8919 from JMWAVE to Director: Slugline RYBAT TYPIC YOBITE DUCK: Ref UFGA-12154 and WAVE-8560 (see 104-10076-10085): This memo is about an AMANCHOR operation. "B. Infiltration/Exfiltration AMANCHOR Team. AMANCHOR-1 (Alberto Beguiristain), AMANCHOR-2, AMANCHOR-5, AMYEAST-8 AMYEAST-13"....At the end it states "DUCK team will transfer from RIPTIDE to LEDA at Point Z...AMBEACH passenger and COBRA XIV exfiltrees will be transferred to RIPTIDE."

104-10215-10145: DISPATCH: TERMINATION OF AMHINT-56

01/22/68: Dispatch from COS, JMWAVE to Chief, WH Division: "Damage Report: Name: AMHINT-56"... "Indigenous Agent Personnel Exposed: AMANCHOR Group Members"...

WATERGATE FBI 139-4089 SECTION 44 SERIALS 2619-2667

Re 6/19/72: "Alberto Beguiristain, 7701 West 18 Lane, Hialeah, Florida, employed as a new car salesman at Anthony Abraham Chevrolet Company, 4181 S.W. S Street, Miami, Florida, was interviewed at his place of employment. He...was advised that this inquiry was being conducted at the request of the Special Prosecutor's Office. He advised that he has been employed at Anthony Abraham Chevrolet since 1968 and that he currently works under the supervision of Manolo Villamanan. He stated that he was active in the Movimiento Recuperacion Revolucionaria, commonly known as the MRR, with both Rolando Martinez and Manolo Villamanan. He stated that several days after Martinez's arrest in Washington, Villamanan came to him at the Chevrolet company and stated that Martinez's daughter, Yolanda Toscano, and her husband wanted Villamanan to secure Rolando's car from the Miami Airport parking lot. Beguiristain stated that he suggested that Yolanda Toscano being the daughter of Rolando Martinez could very easily contact the airport police...and secure her father's car...Beguiristain stated there was no indication at that time that there was any compromising material or contraband in the car and no great urgency in immediately securing possession of the car. In answer to specific questions, Beguiristain stated that from his associations with and knowledge of the activities of Rolando Martinez, that he had no information indicating that Martinez maintained a diary or record of daily activity (and believed there was none)." 10/17/73: SA William F. Guilfoile interview of Alberto Beguiristain (dictated 10/19/73). Also see 157-10011-10084: "At Mr. Esterline's request Mr. Beguiristain obtained a description of the automobile and its location in the garage." Beguiristain appears to be described as a "former Miami Station who was terminated 31 August 1972."

104-10221-10021: MEMO: AHTHONY ABRAHAM CHEVROLET, MIAMI

06/30/72: Memo for the record from Peter J. Jasutis ..."IUSTEER-1 noted that the Chief of Latin American Sales (?) of this firm, Manuel Villamanan, is very much up-to-date on Cuban exile matters. IUSTEER-1 commented that he ran into Villamanan recently and they engaged in a conversation about the Washington Break-In Scandal. IUSTEER-1 found Villamanan very sympathetic to Barker (one of the individuals involved) and IUSTEER-1 felt he hurt Villamanan's feelings when he (IUSTEER-1) was critical of the affair). Also employed as a salesman at this firm is Alberto Beguiristain (AMANCHOR-1) who was at one time associated with Eugenio Martinez (of the Washington Break-in affair) in the capacity of a frogman for the Agency under the cover firm (REDACTION). Chief of Security for Anthony Abraham Chevrolet is Tony Iglesias, identified by IUSTEER-1 as the military chief for the Torriente Group."

104-10096-10131: CIA DOCUMENT: CARD LISTS RE FRANK STURGIS, E. HOWARD HUNT. ET AL

06/07/73: "AMCLATTER-1; Hamilton, Edward J.; AMSNAP-3 (car);... Villamanan, Manolo; AMANCHOR-1"....

WATERGATE FBI 139-4089 SECTION 44 SERIALS 2619-2667

10/18/73: SA William F. Guilfoile interview of Alberto Beguiristain (dictated 10/19/73): "Alberto Beguiristain, 7701 West 18 Lane, Hialeah, Florida, was interviewed at the Bilbao Restaurant, 5910 S.W. S. Street, Miami, Florida. Beguiristain stated that since being interviewed by the FBI, he had discussed the matter with his friend Manolo Villamanan and told him that they should not conceal anything from the FBI and should not in any way be a party to obstruction of justice. He stated they both felt that Rolando Martinez did what he did because he firmly believed he was working on behalf of the government. He stated he told Villamanan that the best way to help their former associate was to tell the truth to the government. He stated he had no direct involvement in the attempt to secure Martinez's car and that he had been kept advised by Villamanan. He said he understood that the first inquiry concerning the matter came from Clara Barker, who suggested that Villamanan and Beguiristain help their old associate in this matter. He stated he understood from mutual friends that Clara Barker was quite upset because they did not secure the car at the time it was visited. He said he has also been advised by mutual friends that Rolando Martinez felt that Villamanan and Beguiristain had let him down. Beguiristain stated it was his opinion that no one had access to the car prior to it being opened and searched by the FBI. He said he had no knowledge of Martinez maintaining a diary and again stated that this would be entirely contrary to his training and discipline."

104-10166-10013: CABLE: UNABLE TO CONFIRM THAT LUIS CONTE AGUERO STILL RESIDES REF ADDRESS THRU DIRECTORY CHECKS

02/13/75: Cable from Withheld to the Director: ..."3. Minutes later, Pachankis again called the above company (Anthony Abraham Chevrolet Agency) and asked to speak with Alberto Beguiristain, an auto salesman. (Since unintelligible July 74 Pachankis has been in occasional contact with Beguiristain (B) because HQs and former (REDACTION) previously expressed interest in assisting B's mother in obtaining US non-immigrant visa when she received temporary permit from GOC to visit"...

MIAMI HERALD ARTICLE: VETS PLAN HOME TO CHERISH MEMORY

https://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/CNews/y06/apr06/19e7.htm 04/15/2006, By Oscar Corral (last article at bottom of link) ....."Wachovia Vice President Maggy Beguiristain, who is a trustee for the new museum, said it's important to have a way for younger generations to remember what happened at the Bay of Pigs. "It's our heritage,'' said Beguiristain, whose father, Alberto Beguiristain, was jailed in Cuba just before the Bay of Pigs for trying to aid the invasion from inside the island. "It tells a story that many people are not aware of, especially the younger generations, who have no clue of what happened back then." The current Bay of Pigs museum is in a run-down building in a residential area of Little Havana. The exhibits are limited to a few memorabilia under glass in display cases, some media clips and photographs hanging on the walls. The new museum would feature video and audio clips of the days surrounding the invasion, Crespo said. Planners also want to be able to fit in a tank and a B-26 airplane, like the ones used in the invasion"...

TIME ARTICLE: CUBA AFTER CASTRO: CAN EXILES RECLAIM THEIR STAKE?

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1223316,00.html (08/05/2006), By Tim Padgett/Miami): "Alberto Beguiristain was once ready to risk his life to regain what he lost in Cuba. In 1960, a year after Fidel Castro took power, the revolution confiscated Beguiristain's large Spanish colonial house and two sugar mills in Sagua la Grande, east of Havana. Beguiristain recalls the "restitution" Castro offered: "He said I could leave the island alive." So in 1961, working for the CIA, Beguiristain ran the first arms shipments from Florida to anti-Castro insurgents for their disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. He was captured and says he would have been executed had he not escaped. Today Beguiristain, 72, who owns an insurance agency in Miami, still wants his Cuba property, which he values in the tens of millions of dollars. But after almost five decades, he hears that his house has been torn down and one of his mills dismantled. He concedes that when Castro dies, he probably won't be hopping into an armed speedboat to rescue his ancestral patrimony, as some exiles once threatened to do; instead he'll be retaining a high-powered attorney, hoping to broker some sort of compensation settlement from a transition government. "I want to take part in reviving Cuba's sugar industry," he says, "but I know it won't be easy to do even after Castro is gone."

DAILY TELEGRAPH ARTICLE: CUBAN EXILES 'NEW HOPE' AS CASTRO FADES

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1573509/Cuban-exiles-new-hope-as-Castro-fades.html (12/23/2007) By Jacqui Goddard in Miami: "Alberto Beguiristain and his family had a good life in Cuba, with their 130,000 acres of farmland, two sugar mills, a distillery, an insurance company and a colonial mansion east of Havana. But all he can see of it now is an image on Google Earth showing an empty plot of land. He and his family were forced to flee for their lives after Fidel Castro seized power - and all of their property - during his communist revolution. Mr Beguiristain has not been able to return to the bustling boulevards of Havana for nearly 50 years. Like fellow exiles in Miami, he has resorted to looking up his property on the island using the Google Earth internet program, which files satellite images from space. After finding the town of Sagua de la Grande on the screen, he zoomed in on where his sugar mill should have been. "It's not there any more. Gone," he lamented. "The latest news is that it was dismantled and sold to Latin American companies. "They took apart the house, the garage, the stable - everything was stripped to nothing." Mr Beguiristain, 74, is one of hundreds of thousands of Cubans who want their properties back, and who took new hope from the hint by Fidel Castro that he was preparing to shift power to a new generation...."Most don't want compensation, we want our land back so we can work on it," said Mr Beguiristain. "Industry is run down to the point that we have to rebuild from new." Mr Beguiristain cannot return under Castro for fear of imprisonment or execution for his part in the US-funded Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, a failed attempt to overthrow the communist regime. He helped bring arms into the country under CIA cover, but was captured and imprisoned before escaping to the US"....

Oscar Corral, "Brigade Veterans Fear Their Sacrifice Will Be Forgotten", Miami Herald, 4/15/06, https://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/CNews/y06/apr06/19e7.htm

"...Felix Rodriguez, 64, was part of the infiltration team that sneaked into Trinidad before the invasion to try to open up a second front. He was in Havana during the invasion, and sought asylum in the Venezuelan Embassy. A few years later, he led a CIA team that tracked down Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara in the Bolivian jungle. Today, he is the president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association. Eduardo Zayas-Bazán, 70, fired the first shots at the Bay of Pigs as he sneaked ashore with five other men as part of an underwater demolition team. As the inflatable boat was nearing the beach, Cuban soldiers in a Jeep heard a noise and turned headlights toward the water. Grayson Lynch, an American who joined the Brigade, gave the order to fire, and they did, destroying the Jeep. ''In Girón, the first shots were ours when we went to take the beach.'' Zayas-Bazán is professor emeritus of languages at East Tennessee State University. ...The veterans from the Bay of Pigs plan to build a $10 million dollar museum in Miami..."It's our heritage" said Wachovia Vice President Maggy Beguiristain, who is a trustee for the new museum, said it's important to have a way for younger generations to remember what happened at the Bay of Pigs. ''It's our heritage,'' said Beguiristain, whose father, Alberto Beguiristain (AMANCHOR-1), was jailed in Cuba just before the Bay of Pigs for trying to aid the invasion from inside the island. "It tells a story that many people are not aware of, especially the younger generations, who have no clue of what happened back then.''

OBITUARY: ALBERTO J. BEGUIRISTAIN SR. https://www.ferdinandfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/Alberto-J-Beguiristain-Sr-2/

No details provided, other than born on January 12, 1932. Died October 14, 2013.

Contributors:
Gavin McDonald • Bill Simpich • Peter Dale Scott • Shane O'Sullivan

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