Cryptonym: WUSALINE
As the below 4/26/63 memo indicates, Haitian banker Clemard Charles came to visit WUBRINY-1 at the "WUSALINE office".
The 1968 memo from officer Gale Allen makes it clear that the Train investment banking firm "houses and manages the proprietary corporation WUSALINE" - thus, the Train firm and WUSALINE are separate entities. As Devine was co-owner of Zapata Off-shore, his office could reasonably construed to be the office of WUSALINE.
1958: "...the dock of the Pinellas Fish Company in Marathon, Florida...is where the office of the Zapata Off-Shore Company of Houston, Texas is located. At this location is kept a helicopter of this company, which is a subsidiary of Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas. Representatives of Howard Hughes, under the name of Zapata Off-Shore Company, are drilling for oil on the Caysol Banks in the Atlantic Ocean about eighty miles east of Marathon. The land where this drilling is going on is reported to be leased to Hughes by Clarence O. Moody."
104-10310-10271: MEMORANDUM:MESSRS. GEORGE BUSH AND THOMAS J. DEVINE
Subject granted covert security approval on 6/12/63. Personal friend and unofficial foreign policy advisor to George H. W. Bush. "Subject's current role in Project WUBRINY is limited to being a cleared and witting contact in the investment banking firm which houses and manages the proprietary corporation WUSALINE." 1/30/68, memo by DO/CO Gale Allen.
Ann Louise Bardach, Without Fidel: https://books.google.com/books?id=5_BCdYfwqGQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=zapata&f=false
Bardach writes: "George Bush served as Zapata's CEO from 1956 to 1964...(Zapata Offshore did) play a useful role during the Bay of Pigs invasion by allowing its oil rigs to be used as listening posts, and again during the Cuban missile crisis. Barron's magazine in 1988 identified Zapata as "a part time purchasing front for the CIA". Also see Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, p. 14.
104-10070-10076: CONTACT REPORT WUBRINY HAITIAN OPERATIONS
4/26/63, Contact Report, Chief, DO/COEO C. Frank Stone to DO/COEO Gale Allen: "WUBRINY-1 (John Train) said that M. Clemard Joseph Charles, subject of earlier Contact Reports, brought to the WUSALINE office George deMohrenschildt."
Commission Document 15FBI Letter from Director of 17 Sep 1964 with Attachments re: Ruby Property
11/20/63, "Club Activities" column in the Dallas Morning News: "American Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors: 6:30 pm Thursday (11/21/63), Sheraton-Dallas Hotel: George Bush, president, Zapata Off-Shore Co."
104-10310-10271: MEMORANDUM: MESSRS. GEORGE BUSH AND THOMAS J. DEVINE
"Thomas J. Devine was a former CIA staff employee and, later, oil-wildcatting associate with Mr. Bush. Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil which they eventually sold. After the sale of Zapata Oil (in 1964), Mr. Bush went into politics, and Mr. Devine became a member of the investment firm of Train, Cabot and Associates, New York." From a 1975 memo written by the Chief of the Cover and Commercial Staff.
Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, (Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 14.
“The writer of the above-mentioned CIA memo had appended an earlier memo from agency files, describing Thomas Devine’s role in a CIA project codenamed WUBRINY. Devine was ‘a cleared and witting contact in the investment banking firm which houses and manages the proprietary corporation WUSALINE.” (BRINY was actually a Haiti-based operation engaged by a corporation, code-named SALINE, that was a whole owned by the CIA. SALINE, like many CIA proprietaries, was in turn operating inside a ‘legitimate’ corporation, whose employees were generally unaware of the spies in their midst.) In this case, the cover corporation was run by investment banker, John Train, a sponsor and longtime enthusiast of foreign intrigues, backing the Afghan rebels during the Regan-Bush years. 9 Train was enormously well connected, and received appointments from president Reagan, Bush Senior, and even Bill Clinton.”
Page 53 of 154: "The undersigned noted that the senior officer of the firm participating with WUSALINE in WUSALINE REDACTED in late 1966 had suggested that a developer of the business be obtained. This overture was followed by Tichborn's (Henry Preston Lopez) exploratory trip in June 1967. Subsequently, a WUSALIFY company for which Tichborn is a legal consultant, followed up on Tichborn's trip by sending a geologist to assess several abandoned silver properties. In this way, the stage should be well set for Tichborn as outlined in the cover letter prepared by WUBRINY-1." Also see p. 98 and the definitions at p. 100: "For station info, best looking prospect at present is CIA proprietary investment and investment consulting firm (WUSALINE), Iden A, which operates with several private companies under the umbrella WUSALIFY (Iden B, Train, Cabot & Associates), a respected investment banking firm. The president of WUSALINE is WUBRINY, (Iden C, John Train). WUSALINE establishes investment consulting affiliates abroad and makes equity investments for CIA purposes."
9/27/66 cable from Director to Managua (Orig: Lee E. Patton, WH/6): "Edward G. Tichborn (Henry Preston Lopez), a long time DYVOUR (probably routing indicator for Mexico)/Mexico contact agent for political action operations has recently been transferred from Mexico City and assigned to the New York City office of his new cover organization WUSALINE which is a DO (Directorate of Operations) proprietary and a subsidiary of WUSALIFY. Tichborn will accompany WUBRINY-1/Thomas Devine the witting head of WUSALINE on a business orientation trip to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico City 3-10 October."
7/8/66 cable from Director to Mexico City (Orig: P. Kittredge, WH/CA): "Suggest Station advise Tichborn (Henry Preston Lopez) that HQs continuing review cover employment possibilities in New York area which compatible his experience and expressed interests. For station info, best looking prospect at present is (CIA) proprietary investment and investment consulting firm (WUSALINE), which operates with several private companies under the umbrella of WUSALIFY, a respected investment banking firm. The president of WUSALINE and principal agent is WUBRINY-1. WUSALINE establishes investment consulting affiliates abroad and makes equity investments for (CIA) purposes...Tichborn and WUBRINY-1 have common background of Harvard Law School, experience publishing intellectual magazine (DIalogos?) and Kennedy campaign activities."
104-10174-10069: CIA FILE ON (ASSET)
2/1/68 cable from DO/CO to Chief, E: "WUSALINE/Iberia can be used as an information collection mechanism in cases where information requirements can be couched in plausible economic and commercial terms for contractual surveys." At p. 88, memo from Gale Allen, Chief, DO Support Group): "A DO proprietary company (WUSALINE) under Project WUBRINY provided cover and funding for contract agent Edward Tichborn (P) (WH Project UOACE) during the period 1 October 1966-30 June 1967." A couple days earlier, Gale Allen wrote that "Since June 12, 1963, (Devine) has been used as a cleared and commercial asset under Project WUBRINY...a personal friend and unofficial foreign affairs advisor to Rep. George Bush of Texas...(his) current role in Project WUBRINY is limited to being a cleared and witting contact in the investment banking firm that houses and manages the proprietary firm WUSALINE." (At 104-10310-10271, p. 3) - - - March 18, 2025, release, page 71: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10174-10069.pdf
"Numerous 'shelf' corporations are kept available to provide cover. These latter entities are generally only of the notional variety and pose no threat either competitively or in terms of domestic activity beyond the Agency's charter. Nonetheless, the Agency has emphasized the need to retain this general vehicle for at least one purpose: To retain assets. The CCS (Cover and Commercial Staff) has indicated that a method is needed to keep 'good men' who are loyal, but need continuing work in both their ordinary and also somewhat byzantine fields. Consequently, proprietaries offer a viable alternative to solve this dilemma of maintaining assets. (at pages 65-66:) ...In a very real sense it is nearly impossible to evaluate whether a 'link' still exists between the Agency and a former asset related to a proprietary because circumstances can be conceived of whereby even though formal and informal Agency ties are discontinued, social and other ties remain. The impact of such liaisons is difficult to assess. The following entities were dissolved during (1965-1975)...(at p. 69) 9/73: Under investment companies, there are three listings: LPDICTUM/K, LPDICTUM/LPSPICE, and LPDICTUM/WUSALINE. (at p. 126:) LPDICTUM/LPSPICE was an investment company that was dissolved. As of September 1973, it had invested over $100,000 in Petrolcos Mexicanos, S.A. Mexico."