David Sánchez Morales

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David Morales, Porter Goss, Felix Rodriguez, Barry Seal, and other members of Operation 40

David Sánchez Morales (August 26, 1925 - May 8, 1978) was a CIA operative who worked in Cuba. He was allegedly involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

[edit] Biographical highlights

Morales spent his early life in Phoenix, Arizona, and attended school at Arizona State College in Tempe (now Arizona State University) and the University of Southern California Los Angeles before joining the Army in 1946. He served in the 82nd Airborne, and was recruited into Army intelligence during that time. Morales maintained an Army 'cover' even after joining the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951.

Shortly after joining the CIA, Morales became an operative for the CIA's Directorate for Plans. It's alleged that he was involved in Executive Action, a series of projects designed to remove from power foreign leaders deemed unfriendly to the United States. Morales reportedly was involved Operation PBSUCCESS, the CIA covert operation that overthrew the democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. During that operation he acquired a reputation as the CIA's top assassin in Latin America.

Through the 1960s and mid-1970s, Morales was involved at top levels in a variety of covert projects, including JMWAVE, the ZRRIFLE plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs operation, the CIA's secret war in Laos, the capture of Che Guevara, and the overthrow of Salvador Allende. He worked closely with Tracy Barnes, William Pawley, David Atlee Phillips, John Martino, Johnny Roselli, and the infamous Ted Shackley.

[edit] Involvement with the Kennedy assassinations

Some researchers (among them Gaeton Fonzi, Larry Hancock, and John Simkin) believe that Morales was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Sanchez's friend Ruben Carbajal claimed that in 1973 Morales opened up about his involvement with the Bay of Pigs operation, and stated that "Kennedy had been responsible for him having to watch all the men he recruited and trained get wiped out". Morales then 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 in New Orleans in 1963.

David Morales 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." [1], referring to the assassination of both Kennedy brothers.

In 2006, St. John Hunt, the son of E. Howard Hunt, told Rolling Stone magazine that his father linked Morales to the "French gunman" who appeared at the grassy knoll the day President Kennedy was shot. The elder Hunt claimed that Cord Meyer, acting under orders from Lyndon B. Johnson, developed the basic plot with David Atlee Phillips. Then Phillips brought in William Harvey and Antonio Veciana to oversee the operation. Veciana in turn enlisted Frank Sturgis, Oswald, Lucien Sarti, and Morales to execute the plan.

Bradley Ayers told the Assassination Records Review Board in 1995 that he had found a credible witness who could place David Morales at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. This has been verified by a BBC report.