104 10181 10117

104-10181-10117 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

RETURN TO CIA Background Use Only Do Not Reproduce

8 March 1967

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

SUBJECT: Possible DRE Animus Towards President Kennedy

  1. This memorandum makes record of a recollection which has been brought to mind in recent weeks since my return from Yugoslavia in late November 1966.

  2. In Spring 1961, upon returning from Berlin I was assigned to JMWAVE. One of the cases on which I worked from then until shortly before my reassignment to Headquarters in late summer 1963 concerned funding of overseas elements of the DRE (Student Revolutionary Directorate) which had its main office in Miami (the case officer for this group during this period was Mr. Ross CROZIER, since resigned).

  3. I believe that it is this group, the DRE, which has been referred to in investigations into the President's assassination as the Cuban Student Directorate, whose New Orleans represen- tative is said to have had contacts with OSWALD.

  4. I have assumed that, since the time I was transferred from Miami and scheduled for my next assignment as COB.27 10 Zagreb, officers better and more recently informed than myself have probably examined in detail all aspects of the DRE involve- ment with OSWALD, in order to rule out any slight possibility that compromise of the CIA sponsorship of this organization might in any way embarrass the Agency. Recent news reports of investigations centering in New Orleans on the assassination have once again brought to mind the concern I felt in November 1963, by which time, however, I was far removed from current knowledge of the operation.

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  1. I do retain a distinct recollection that the DRE leader- ship, specifically Luis FERNANDEZ Rocha, whom I met several times, did hold sentiments of chagrin and embitterment that President Kennedy had not more forcefully pursued a "liberation" of Cuba. Whether or not this animus, which could be discerned as occasional signs of anger or of contempt or of discouragement, might have been translated into a wish for revenge, may be better known to other officers who dealt with this group after the summer of 1963.

Calvin Thomas SB/O/PT

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