David Morales Deep Dive, Pt. 3: Links to the Crime of the Century

The JMWAVE operations chief created a network of assets with motive, means, and opportunity to kill the president.

Background: Dealey Plaza, Dallas, soon after the assassination. Left: President John F. Kennedy. Top right (left to right): CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton, accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and David Sanchez Morales.

[This is the third installment in a five-part series on CIA officer David Sanchez Morales, who boasted of killing JFK ten years after the assassination. Part 1 | Part 2]

As noted in Part 1, within two months of the Bay of Pigs defeat, in internal documents David Sanchez Morales was identifying himself as “chief of base” at the massive Miami station (JMWAVE). Despite the failure, Morales was the only “Cuba Project” officer to receive a commendation for his contribution to the Bay of Pigs operation. He was cited for his work in creating the AMOT, AMFAST and AMCHEER Cuban assets described in Part 2.

By August 1961 Morales had received an “excepted appointment” as “OPS OFFICER (DCOS)” at JMWAVE. The “DCOS” indicated a rank equivalent in practice to deputy chief of station. In the cable traffic, he became known by the cryptonym “Stanley R. Zamka.”

Morales’ meteoric rise in the CIA after the invasion debacle looks symptomatic of redoubled determination and drive on the part of the Agency to eliminate the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro — by any means necessary. Assassinations chief William King Harvey and David Sanchez Morales played leading roles in that effort. Both hated JFK.