David Morales Deep Dive, Pt. 2: The Making of a Killer

Morales' meteoric rise in the Agency placed him in the center of anti-Castro operations

Left: David Morales in an undated photo from his CIA personnel file (Credit: National Archives). Background: Front page of April 17, 1961, edition of the Lancaster New Era newspaper (Credit: newspapers.com)

[This is the second in a five-part series on CIA officer David Sanchez Morales, who boasted of killing JFK ten years after the assassination. Read Part I ]

An internal CIA memorandum to the Western Hemisphere Division’s chief of counterintelligence for Cuba, dated May 22, 1961, was finally declassified in full on March 18, 2025. Written in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the memo identifies Agency assets inside Cuba and offers recommendations on what to do with them.

The sender, 36-year-old David Sanchez Morales, identifies himself as “Chief of Base, JMWAVE,” cryptonym of the CIA’s massive Miami Station. Morales commanded a “base,” a satellite to the main station — but he was in charge. The rising operations officer from Phoenix, Arizona, had already begun his rapid ascent in power and responsibility.