Cryptonym: JMMOVE
104-10117-10137: BELLE CHASSE, LOUISIANA AMMUNITION DEPOT
This base in the New Orleans area was used from February-May 1961 by the CIA as a Cuban training camp. During the same period underwater demolitions training was conducted at Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico, and "a safe site was located in Pass Christian, Mississippi for a short time." This camp at the Algiers ammunition dump was run by Nino Diaz (AMNORM-1), who moved to Miami when his force was unable to land in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs. http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=2811&search=%22truth_about+cuba+committee%22#relPageId=4&tab=page This is the site and operation that was run directly by the CIA (and known as JMMOVE). Grayston Lynch discusses this in 1977: http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=111943&search=BOSCH#relPageId=7&tab=page
The Belle Chasse Louisiana Ammunition Depot is subcaptioned as Operation JMMOVE. Office of Security Number 536 198. (at pp. 14-15): "This training base...during the period 12 February 1961 through 12 April 1961. This base located eight miles from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, had been inactive for five years...the initial mission assigned to the Base was to hold, condition, and conduct limited training for thirty men organized into small infiltration teams, and to prepare these teams for operational employment. On activation of the Base, the mission was immediately expanded to include the reception and training of 149 men for organization into small guerrilla teams; reorganization and training of the 149 men...training of raider teams...development of necessary support facilities..." (5/1/75 Memorandum for the Record re Alleged Illegal Domestic Activities)
Larry Hancock. Somebody Would Have Talked, pp 60-61, 361 (2010 edition)
Pre-Bay of Pigs: After training in Guatemala, Victor Hernandez and others were brought back for special advanced training at the Belle Chasse camp in Louisiana. David Phillips later wrote about it. See 104-10435-10014...(A second camp) never became operational but was to be sponsored by the CRC and was being organized by Gerry Hemming, Frank Sturgis (and friends) in 1962. The CRC cancelled these plans due to the Kennedy Administration crackdown on US staged Cuban raids...During the summer of 1963, we have information on two New Orleans 'camps', one of which was not actually a camp but simply a U-Haul parked at the McLaney farm. The U-Haul was the one that Victor (Espinosa) Hernandez had brought down from Illinois. The other 1963 camp was one being organized out of Miami, as part of a proposal that Richard Davis had made to the Christian Democrat/MDC organization. Later investigation of the Christian Democrat/MDC camp revealed that it never really jelled; partially because apparently it was a scam by Davis; and partially because the FBI raid and arrests at the McLaney property scared away the participants."
104-10263-10066: DISPATCH: STATUS REPORT OF JMMOVE AGENTS IN THE JMWAVE AREA
"On 1 March 1961, the following men arrived (at) JMWAVE from JMMOVE: (Victor Espinosa (AMHINT-24) is highlighted) Miguel Alvarez Jiminez, Luis Grillo, Carlos Hernandez, Frank Bernardino, Francisco Canizares, Benito Clark, Victor Espinosa, Mario Jiminez Rojo, Carlos Lopez Ona, Jorge Navarro, Jose Raffo, Pedro Acebo, Jorge Senviella, Lazaro Ugarte, Manuel Vivos, Francisco Garcia Zayas." (3/27/61 status report from Chief of Base JMWAVE to Chief, WH.)
104-10240-10268: CABLE:THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS, ALL TRANSFERS FROM JMMOVE LOCATION NO
4/2/61 memo "re disposition of AMHAZE agents upon completion ship and island training". These transfers from "JMMOVE location number 8...desire engage in raider ops with Miguel Orozco leader of group...reluctant join either AMBIDDY-1 (Artime) or AMNORM (Nino Diaz)."
104-10227-10304: CABLE: GIST OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN AMNORM-1 AND MR. JOSE
4/9/61 report of phone conversation between AMNORM-1 (Nino Diaz) at JMMOVE and Miro Cardona (AMBUD-1) in New York City. AMORM-1 reported all were in good health and high spirits except for two men that were ill and one with appendicitis.
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=43196&relPageId=2 JMWAVE memo, 12/30/67: "Old hands at the station confirm JMMOVE was the only Agency sponsored training camp." The following discussion is about the MDC camp, not to be confused with JMMOVE. States that MDC camp was 15 miles away from New Orleans, right after long bridge at entrance to Louisiana, with millionaires funding the camp. In a taped interview, CARLOS QUIROGA told Jim Garrison in 1967 that Victor Manuel Paneque y Batista (201-286382) was "in charge of a CIA training camp conducted for Cubans from Miami in Lacombe, LA". http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=101677&relPageId=12 12/30/67 memo is from the 100-300-017 file.
Warren Hinckle and William Turner, Deadly Secrets (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992) pp. 226-227..
"At the time of the FBI raid (on 7/31/63, the Lacombe) training camp was occupied by the MDC under the guise of training security guards for a lumber mill in Guatemala. But the MDC military chief, Laureano Batista, later admitted to the New Orleans district attorney that the trainees actually were destined, with the approval of General Somoza, for the CIA-supported naval guerrilla base of Manuel Artime in Guatemala (note: AMWORLD). The camp was used by various groups of the exile far right - the DRE, 30th of November Movement, and MIRR - all of which huddled around the wing of Paulino Sierra's short-lived, mob-connected provisional government...(in 1963) Orlando Bosch (and his MIRR) combined his operations with Frank Sturgis' International Anti-Communist Brigade...which resulted in 11 air strikes against Cuba, beginning on April 25."
10/4/63: Information received on 8/10/63 states that MRR is forming a new brigade in Miami led by recruitment chief Manuel Guillot de la Serna. Guillot estimated having recruited 300 to date. A field comment from late July added that bases were being established in Nicaragua and adds "after the recruits are accepted, they are sent to New Orleans."
1993.06.10.09:07:17:530000: INVESTIGATION OF FERNANDO FERNANDEZ'S ALLEGATIONS OF CUBAN ESPIONAGE N
Report of FBI agent James J. O'Connor, 5/8/64: "...On 9/1/63, the (CIA advised that) the MDC had caught (Fernando) Fernandez writing to Carlos Lechuga, a Cuban governmental official, while in training with the MDC at a camp near New Orleans, Louisiana, and offering to betray the MDC. Fernandez became disillusioned with the MDC and came up with a plan to trade information with the Castro government in exchange for asylum. (page 16) In July 1963, he joined 18 men at the camp for commando training. (pp. 16-17) On 9/1/63, he was confronted by MDC leader Laureano Batista and others and told they could impose the death sentence on him. He confessed to being a Castro intelligence agent even though he said it was not true. (page 18) Fernandez advised (that the training camp of the MDC) was on a farm believed known as the Gus Labar Walhend, about 30 miles north of New Orleans". Gaeton Fonzi wrote for the HSCA that Gus de LaBarre right-wing New Orleans businessman, formed a lumber company with the intention to train Cubans in Lacombe, Louisiana in 1963, led by Victor Paneque. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1212#relPageId=76&tab=page
1994.05.06.08:43:35:150005: Reel 25, Folder C - GARRISON INVESTIGATION - VOL I.
FBI reports of May & July 1964: Richard Davis of the MDC in New Orleans told the FBI that Batista sent the men from Miami after he let be known that he needed men to work at the lumber company near Lacombe. Besides Victor Paneque, the other men included Leodorino Interlan, Fernando Fernandez and FNU Fornes. FBI broke up the camp when they found dynamite. He said the training camp was at the De La Barre Estate in Lacombe. Carlos Quiroga reported that Davis told him that Fernandez was a Communist spy, and that John Birch Society members were the Americans that were supporting them in their work in New Orleans. Also see 104-10322-10085, p. 18 - Bud Fensterwald letter states that George de Mohrenschildt was a "friend of Gus de la Barre, who, in turn, was very close to General Walker."
1994.04.28.14:57:28:100005: Reel 8, Folder F - GERALD PATRICK HEMMING
In 1967, the CIA concluded that Carlos Quiroga may have been a Cuban intelligence penetration of the anti-Castro forces (p. 14)...that Oswald might have had a meeting in Mexico City with a CIA officer using the alias of Bill Medina (p. 17)...the CIA claimed it had not relationship with "any training camp on or near Lake Pontchartrain". (p. 25)...that Gerry Hemming has his own file within 100-300-017 (p. 71)...