NewSouth

1

Going After the Bearded Lady

On that crisp fall morning in October 1960 Brigadier General George Reid Doster had a curious visitor who came to Birmingham on a mission that would disrupt the daily routine of the Alabama Air National Guard and change the lives of air guardsmen under the general's command. The 42-year-old Doster, a burly cigar-chomping six-footer known as "Papa" to the troops, had been with the Alabama Air National Guard since the end of World War II. After the war he came home from the China-Burma-India Theater, made captain, and was assigned as the liaison officer for the Alabama Air Guard-giving him the distinction of being the first air guardsman in Alabama during the postwar period. Politically savvy and serving in the right place at the right time, Doster rose from captain to brigadier general in just over ten years. During the early 1960s, he was the man to see if you had business with the Air Guard and wanted to get an urgent mission done without too many questions being asked or without a mountain of red tape to climb.

From his headquarters on the north side of Birmingham's municipal airport, Doster commanded the 117th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing with flying units in both Birmingham and Montgomery, as well as Meridian, Mississippi, and Fort Smith, Arkansas. Alerted by the National Guard Bureau chief in Washington, D.C., to expect the unannounced visitor, the general's broad grin and bushy eyebrows concealed more than a little curiosity when the small, nondescript man walked into the outer office and identified himself as a government agent with the CIA. An expression of interest in what the man had to say creased Doster's brow when his uninvited guest revealed that the CIA wanted to recruit volunteers from the general's wing for a project of critical importance to the nation.1

Without going into details, the agent explained in a conspiratorial whisper that the CIA had a secret project in the works to arm and train a brigade of Cuban exiles for an invasion of their homeland. That the CIA had a plan to overthrow Fidel Castro was enough to demand the general's attention. The Cuban dictator had become a thorn in the side of the United States, a menace to his neighbors, and a threat to peace throughout the region. He was a cancer that needed to be removed. "So we're finally going after the bearded lady," was Doster's booming response.

The man threw Doster a quizzical look. "Fidel. You know, the bearded lady," the general said. "You're finally going after that commie son of a bitch."

Continuing in a hushed voice, the man told Doster that the CIA had sent him to Birmingham to get the Alabama Guard's help in training Cuban exiles for the secret project. The agency planned to equip a small liberation air force with refurbished B-26 light bombers from the Air Force's mothball fleet at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. A cadre of experienced pilot instructors along with maintenance and armament crews was needed, and the CIA hoped to draw from the Alabama Guard's pool of proven resources. Having retired its B-26s in the late 1950s, the Birmingham wing was the last USAF unit to fly the WWII-vintage bombers. The agent asked if the general would be willing to recruit qualified volunteers to deploy to a secret base in Guatemala for an extended period. The men would be sheep-dipped (sanitized) and sworn to secrecy. They were to talk to no one, not even their families, about the mission. "Mister, you got yourself an air force," Doster replied, jumping at the opportunity. "Nothing me and my boys would like better than to go down and kick Castro's butt." There was a second star in Doster's future whichever way he went, but an important mission like this one never hurt. It would also be good for "his boys" as he referred to the guardsmen in his wing. When the agent finished talking, Doster yelled to his secretary to get the governor's office on the telephone. When told that the governor would see them, Doster and the CIA man left in a staff car for the two-hour drive to Montgomery.

It was Reid Doster's favorite time of year. Alabama football was in the air and hunting season opened soon. The general was an avid outdoorsman who hated to be cooped up in an office. As they sped down U.S. Highway 31, early autumn colors enhanced the countryside of rolling hills, lazy pastures, patches of ravenous kudzu here and there, and groves of southern trees with their softly falling leaves. Everytime he traveled this route, which had become more frequently of late, Doster wished the state would hurry up and build the new interstate highway everyone was talking about. The CIA man was quiet, a good listener. Doster was ebullient, talkative. He carried the conversation with good-old-boy talk mostly about hunting, fishing, and college football. His alma mater Auburn was still in the hunt for the Southeastern Conference championship, and he loved to tell anyone who would listen about it. Doster knew to stay clear of college football in their meeting with Governor John Patterson, however, because the chief executive was an alumnus of Auburn's traditional rival, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. There was no need to push his luck with the governor.

Patterson received his two guests in the governor's mansion. The 22-room residence on South Perry Street, built at the turn of the century by the son of a former lieutenant governor and purchased by the State of Alabama in 1950, was an impressive structure. Patterson became the third governor to reside in the mansion when he took office in 1959. The governor was a warm and gracious host. Years later he recalled the two men coming to see him at the mansion and asking for his approval to recruit volunteers from the Alabama National Guard "to train Cubans in Guatemala for an invasion of Cuba." He was assured that the Alabama Guard would participate in a supporting role only and would not take an active part in the invasion. Patterson gave Doster the green light to involve the Alabama Guard within those parameters. 2

The governor gathered from their discussion that the invasion was imminent, however, which gave him pause for thought. Since the meeting occurred in the heat of the presidential campaign between Kennedy and Nixon, Patterson feared that the Eisenhower Administration might be planning to invade Cuba before the election in hopes that it would clinch a Nixon victory in November. The governor was a staunch Democrat and a Kennedy supporter. Before November, in a meeting with Kennedy at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, Patterson confided to the presidential hopeful what the CIA agent had told him about secret plans to invade Cuba. Patterson said he believed an invasion was imminent and, if successful, would be used to defeat Kennedy at the polls in November.3

There were others who believed Vice President Richard Nixon wanted dramatic action taken against Castro before the election, but Eisenhower was not going to let that happen. The President had not approved any plan to invade Cuba and had no intention of doing so. He had given his approval for a secret program to train and equip anti-Castro Cuban refugees, but there had been no decisions as to how the forces would be used, if at all.4 Kennedy did not reveal to the governor that CIA Director Allan Dulles had already briefed him in July at Hyannis Port about training Cuban exiles for operations against the Castro government.5

Governor Patterson's fears proved unfounded when Kennedy narrowly defeated his Republican opponent in the November election. Meanwhile, General Doster and his staff had begun planning in secret for the Air Guard's participation in the CIA project. Once the plan became final Doster pulled together a group of 80 volunteers from among present and former Air Guard members. Most of the volunteers were from Alabama, but a few came from Arkansas and elsewhere. After the Cuban invasion failed Orval E. Faubus, who served three terms (1955-1967) as the Arkansas governor, appeared to have second thoughts about his state's involvement in the operation.

In March 1963 the wire services reported an admission by Governor Faubus that the CIA had secretly recruited some Arkansas guardsmen on "a soldier of fortune basis" from the 184th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron at Fort Smith. The governor claimed that some Arkansans had flown combat missions and that an Arkansas Guard plane on loan to the CIA had been shot down.6 United Press International quoted Brigadier General Frank Bailey, chief of staff of the Arkansas Air National Guard, as saying: "He (Faubus) doesn't know what he's talking about. The Air Guard did not have any planes involved." The general was quick to add that the governor might be privy to information the Guard did not have.7

According to the UPI report, Governor Faubus lashed out at the federal government for "secretly recruiting Arkansas National Guard pilots for the 1961 Cuban invasion" and for the way the government handled the operation:

This whole thing is a disgrace in American history. They tried to recruit some men in the north and couldn't do it, so they came down to the South where they still have some patriotism and got some volunteers among the National Guard.8 The final weeks of 1960 were busy ones for General Doster's wing headquarters. The wing was already on a fast track-having transitioned into Republic RF-84F jets in the spring of 1958-but the CIA mission took priority and demanded their immediate attention. Doster called his key staff together and had them begin planning for the secret mission in Guatemala. Two senior staffers, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph L. Shannon (commander of the Alabama Guard's 106th Bombardment Squadron) and Major Riley Shamburger (squadron operations officer), went to CIA headquarters in Washington for six weeks to provide technical guidance and to help out with command post operations.9 Shannon and Shamburger were two of Doster's most experienced officers. At 39 years of age, Shannon was a soft-spoken professional who had flown fighters throughout the Mediterranean theater during WWII and was cool under fire. He flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning in the war and was the first Allied pilot to land safely in Italy after that invasion. Shannon's fellow guardsmen called him "Shaky Joe" because he was so unflappable. Shamburger, also a WWII veteran, was a couple of years younger than his squadron commander, a larger man, more boisterous and carefree. Called "Hambone" by some of his friends, Shamburger had a hair-trigger temper, but was described as "dynamic, a man's man, and a leader" who was well-liked and respected in the Alabama Guard.10

At CIA headquarters Allen Dulles and his people were looking forward to moving to a new facility at Langley, Virginia, early in 1961, but the Agency's clandestine operations in places like Laos and Cuba were the center of attention in the fall of 1960. Of special interest to the Alabama guardsmen were operations of the Cuban Task Force that was set up early in 1960 in response to President Eisenhower's "request for an ambitious covert program to overthrow the Castro government." Under the overall direction of Richard Bissell, the CIA's chief of clandestine services, the task force was headed by Jake Esterline, a specialist in covert operations who helped oust the communist regime of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.11 In August 1960, the Marines detailed Colonel Jack Hawkins, a crack combat officer with experience in amphibious landings, to the CIA for the planned paramilitary assault against Cuba. Stanley W. Beerli, a razor-thin, balding USAF colonel on detached duty with the CIA, was in charge of air support for the invasion.12

From their discussions in Washington the Alabama guardsmen learned that the CIA had been training Cuban guerrillas in the Canal Zone and in the United States, primarily on Useppa Island off Florida's southwest coast, since the spring of 1960. The Agency needed a larger, more realistic training base and an airfield from which air transports flown by Cuban exiles and contract pilots could resupply resistance fighters in the Sierra Maestra and Escambray mountain ranges in Cuba. The Guatemalan government agreed to a CIA proposal to build a secret airfield at Retalhuleu in the Sierra Madre Mountains, and in early July the training program for Cuban exiles was moved from Useppa Island to bases in Guatemala. The Sierra Madre range was a realistic training ground for the airdrop missions over the rugged mountains in Cuba. The new facilities at Retalhuleu also supported training for larger actions against the Castro regime.13

The CIA used several training areas in Guatemala. The primary ones were located near Retalhuleu at Helvetia and La Sviza, two vast coffee plantations in the Sierra Madre Mountains owned by Roberto Alejos, the brother of the Guatemalan ambassador to the United States, Carlos Alejos. The ambassador obtained approval from President Ydigoras Fuentes for the CIA to arm and train Cuban anti-Castro forces on Guatemalan soil, and arranged for the use of his brother's plantations as training bases. Roberto Alejos was compensated for the use of his plantations, and got a new airfield nearby as a bonus. The CIA and the Guatemalans mutually benefited from the arrangement, although questions would arise afterward whether a "worse training site" could have been chosen. A lack of facilities, torrential rains, volcanic soil, and thousands of inquisitive plantation workers were just a few of the problems that plagued CIA planning for the invasion. In terms of security, the base was in plain view of a busy railway and a road that was jammed with trucks carrying coffee beans and workers from nearby plantations.14 Even before construction started on the Retalhuleu airfield, the Castro government accused Guatemala of serving "as a bridgehead for an invasion of our country." By the fall of 1960 the rumors were rampant that Cuban exiles were training at Retalhuleu for an invasion of Cuba. President Fuentes went on television to admit the existence of the base, but this only added fuel to the rumor mill. Around the same time the thinking at CIA headquarters began shifting from "infiltrating teams to wage guerrilla warfare to an amphibious operation involving at least 1,500 men who would seize and defend an area by sea and air assault and establish a base for further operations."15

It was painfully obvious by the fall of 1960 that Castro was not likely to be defeated by the resistance movement alone. The infiltration of guerrillas and their resupply from the air was proving more difficult than CIA planners had thought. A report described the first drop of weapons and supplies to the Cuban resistance in September 1960:

The air crew tries to drop an arms pack for a hundred men to an agent waiting on the ground. They miss the drop zone by seven miles and land the weapons on top of a dam where they are picked up by Castro's forces. The agent is caught and shot. The plane gets lost on the way to Guatemala and lands in Mexico, where it is impounded.16

It did not take a military strategist to see that the base at Retalhuleu was not a suitable jumping-off point for an invasion of Cuba. The base was a mountain fortress built on a plateau overlooking the Pacific and was not strategically located for an amphibious assault on Cuba. The ships could not embark from Retalhuleu without going through the Panama Canal, and the base was beyond the range of fully armed B-26s. The CIA had begun searching for a more suitable base, one that was in the combat radius of fully loaded B-26s and supporting aircraft, from which to launch the invasion once training was completed in Guatemala. A remote airstrip at Puerto Cabezas on the northeastern coast of Nicaragua was the only operating location available, and it barely met the range requirements. On December 8, the CIA task force got approval to negotiate for the use of Puerto Cabezas as a staging base for the Cuban invasion.17

Subsequently, Colonel Beerli called on an old friend of the Alabama Guard to survey the base at Puerto Cabezas and to help negotiate with Nicaragua strong man Anastasio Somoza for its use. Lieutenant Colonel Harry C. "Heinie" Aderholt, who was born and raised in Birmingham, had been with the CIA since the Korean War and now commanded clandestine air operations out of Okinawa and Thailand. Heinie Aderholt knew most of the Alabama Guard pilots. His brother Warren, an Air Force fighter jock, had served with the Alabama Guard after returning from WWII. He was delighted to hear that Reid Doster and the guardsmen were an integral part of the Cuban operation.18

When the resupply missions got off to a bad start in September the task force asked for Aderholt's help in training the Cuban transport pilots at Retalhuleu. An expert in covert air operations, Aderholt had dropped agents behind the lines during the Korean War and had set up the CIA's first air training school at Williamsburg, Virginia. He sent the task force a couple of his best pilots to help train the Cubans at Retalhuleu to fly C-46 Commando and C-54 Skymaster transports in clandestine operations. On a hurried trip back to Washington, Aderholt went with officials from the Central American Division to negotiate with Nicaragua's president Anastasio Somoza for permission to stage the Cuban invasion out of Puerto Cabezas.19

The team met secretly with the Nicaraguan president at 2 a.m. on a sultry tropic night. After getting Somoza's permission to use Puerto Cabezas, Aderholt flew with Somoza's son, Anastasio Jr., in a C-47 to inspect the field, which was an old World War II strip on the way to Panama with swamps all around it. While there he made a sketch of the field and its 5,000-foot cinder runway for the CIA to use in preparing for the invasion. Aderholt never forgot President Somoza's parting words to the CIA team. "I'm willing to support you," he said, speaking of plans to overthrow Fidel Castro, "but be sure you get rid of that son of a bitch, or you are going to live with him the rest of your life."20

Back in Birmingham, General Doster's recruiting efforts picked up around the Christmas Holidays. After briefing President-elect Kennedy at Palm Beach, Florida, on November 18 and getting high-level authorization on December 8 to proceed with its plans, the CIA task force began a seven-week training program at a base camp near Retalhuleu for approximately 600 Cuban exiles. While the CIA continued to train some guerrilla forces in Guatemala, the new program was much larger and entailed conventional training for an amphibious and airborne assault.21 Soon thereafter, the CIA gave Doster the word to press on with efforts to recruit a force of approximately 80 Air Guard volunteers.

All the CIA asked of General Doster was that he recruit qualified volunteers to serve as advisers to the Cuban B-26 pilots at Retalhuleu, to fly some transport missions, and to arm and maintain the planes. The agency neither needed nor wanted the Air Guard general to deploy to Retalhuleu with the Alabama volunteers. The agency stationed one of its officers (known only by a pseudonym, Gar) at the base as commander of air operations. Another CIA officer was assigned as his deputy. The presence of an Air Guard general at the base could only confuse the chain of command and get in the way of operations. Doster insisted on being with "his boys," however, so he took temporary leave from the Guard. The CIA, needing his support and cooperation, took him along as part of a package deal. One advantage of having Doster there was that he got along famously with the Cuban pilots, who enjoyed being around the general and respected him.22

When Joe Shannon and Riley Shamburger went to CIA headquarters in early January 1961, they helped Colonel Beerli's people finalize B-26 requirements. Beerli's deputy for air operations, Colonel George Gaines, was in charge of putting the B-26 project together. The 16 refurbished B-26s along with additional C-46 and C-54 transports would be at Retalhuleu waiting for the guardsmen when they got there. Some 40 former commercial and military pilots were selected from among Cuban exiles in Miami to undergo training at Retalhuleu. General Doster's volunteers were charged with getting the B-26s and their Cuban pilots ready for the invasion. Doster recruited a few civilian pilots as backup to the CIA regulars flying the C-46 and C-54 transports. He also needed crew chiefs, armament specialists, mechanics, and firemen. Most of these specialties were filled by the Alabama Guard, but some came from Arkansas and Georgia.23

General Doster called the guardsmen into his headquarters, individually and in groups, and gruffly warned them about the secrecy surrounding their mission. The ones who volunteered for the mission were instructed not to tell their families or anyone else where they were going. They made up "believable" cover stories to hide their identity and to mislead interrogators in the event they were captured. Doster had the entire wing fired up about the mission, but not everyone could go. Not only were there not enough slots in Guatemala for all of the guardsmen, but there were other exigencies to consider. Many of the guardsmen were married and had families. Most had civilian jobs or their own businesses. Joe Shannon said he had to give the matter a lot of thought before telling Doster in late December that he would go. While he and Riley Shamburger were in Washington, the other guardsmen began shipping out to Retalhuleu in January.24

Volunteers for the CIA mission made a dent in the workforce at Hayes Aircraft Corporation sitting across the field from the Air Guard wing. Shamburger, Billy "Dodo" Goodwin, Stud Livingston, George Nelms and Thomas Ray were test pilots with Hayes which did repair and maintenance work for the Air Force. Leo Francis Baker and Wade Carroll Gray were flight engineers with the corporation. Baker also operated two pizza parlors in Birmingham. Another Air Guard pilot, James W. "Jaws" Harrison, Jr., a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, was employed by Hayes as an inspector. He and some of the other pilots thought they would be flying combat missions against Cuba, not finding out until after arriving in Guatemala that they would be training Cubans to fly.25 Albert C. "Buck" Persons was a civilian pilot who jumped at the chance to join the group of Air Guard volunteers and who later wrote a book about the experience. A multifaceted individual who was drawn to adventure throughout his life, Buck Persons as a young man had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939 when World War II started. After the Bay of Pigs he became managing editor of a weekly newspaper, the Birmingham Examiner. He had not joined the Alabama Guard, but had friends in Doster's wing and, being somewhat bored with his job flying a DC-3 for a Birmingham construction firm, was a natural choice for the CIA mission in Guatemala. Just after New Year's Day, Persons knew something was up when he arrived at the hangar around noon to find a message that Riley Shamburger had been trying all morning to reach him.26

Persons tracked his friend down at the Hayes Aircraft hangars. Shamburger, who was in a rush because he and Shannon were getting ready to leave for Washington, explained that General Doster was recruiting pilots for a hush-hush mission in Guatemala and sent Persons over to the wing headquarters to see him. After he and a group of other pilots were briefed on the mission Persons signed up. Doster leaned heavily on the men not to reveal to anyone where they were going or what they would be doing, warning in a booming voice that "their ass was grass" if they did. Although Doster did not mention Fidel Castro or Cuba, Persons said that it was obvious to everyone what their mission would be and the stories were all over the newspapers anyway.27

Armament and maintenance personnel were among the first guardsmen to leave Birmingham on the secret mission. The list included Captain William P. Baker and two top noncoms, John O. Spinks and Louis H. Hudson. Spinks was one of two men volunteering for the mission who could mix napalm. He also was one of the elders in the Alabama Air National Guard, having joined up in 1937 while working in a steel mill. In 1940 Spinks and other members of the Birmingham-based unit were called up and served with the Thirteenth Air Force in the South Pacific. When the war ended, he returned home and accepted a full-time position with the Air Guard. As always, Spinks was ready to go wherever he was needed when General Doster called him and the other two guardsmen into his office and warned, "Breathe one word of what I am going to tell you and I'll have your ass." The general then grinned broadly and asked, "How would you guys like to kick Castro's butt?"28

Reid Doster was a noncom's general. Most of them respected Doster, and they liked his style. Bobby A. Whitley, who was in communications and radio repair at Puerto Cabezas, said Doster was "smart" and "a good leader," but was overbearing at times. "If he wasn't so overbearing he could have got men to follow him anywhere in the world," Whitley said. "But it was his way or no way. His opinion was the only one that counted. If he treated his men right they would have done anything in the world for him."29

Roy H. Wilson, another sergeant who left for Guatemala after Spinks and Hudson, thought "Papa" Doster could do no wrong. He described Doster as "a hell of a commander, a hell of a general." He related an incident involving a new 1956 Ford convertible he bought soon after joining the Guard. "Man, I was proud of that car!" Wilson recalled. One morning he unwittingly parked the Ford in a space that a major had reserved for his personal use. "The son of a bitch ran into the side of my convertible and left a note for me to never park there again," Wilson said. "I went to the major's office and told him if he didn't fix my car, I was going to whip the major's ass." The major went to General Doster, who told the officer he was not authorized a private parking space and assured him that Roy Wilson was a man of his word. The major paid for having the convertible repaired.30

Wilson confirmed what others said about there being no need for the general at Retalhuleu or Puerto Cabezas, however. "I can't recall seeing him (Doster) do one damn thing," Wilson told an interviewer. Once when the general put Wilson and another noncom to work uncrating guns, a CIA supervisor came by and asked what they were doing. When the men explained that "Papa" had told them to take the guns out of the crates, the CIA honcho yelled at Doster and asked what he was doing giving the men orders. "They were sitting on their butts doing nothing and I thought I would put them to work," Doster replied. The general was reminded that the men worked for the CIA, not him. "We went back to sitting on our butts," Wilson said.31

Before going to Guatemala, Roy Wilson supplemented his Alabama Guard pay by moonlighting as a bartender at the Airport Inn, a popular hangout for the air guardsmen and the Hayes pilots. Wilson said he had seen "the sun rise there lots of times." The Air Guard members gathered at the inn the night before leaving Birmingham to go on the Cuban mission and partied there when they came back.32 Sometimes reporters came to the Airport Inn looking for a good story. The Birmingham warriors didn't stand on protocol, and anyone could forget that "loose lips sink ships" when the beer was flowing and their hair was down.

David Langford with The Birmingham News was one of the reporters who broke the news in the spring of 1961 about the Alabama Guard's connection to the Bay of Pigs invasion. Twenty-five years later Langford looked back on Alabama's support for the Cuban invasion in a news feature he wrote for the Associated Press. Portraying them as "mostly laid-back, beer-drinking sons of Dixie" led by "a bullish general" who called them "his little airmen" and was "eager to kick Castro's tail," Langford recalled the electricity that was in the air when the guardsmen began leaving for Guatemala in late 1960. "The rumor mill was working overtime at the Airport Inn, the beer and barbecue joint near the Birmingham airport where Hayes technicians and Air Guardsmen usually ended their flights," Langford wrote. Regulars at the bar were conspicuously absent, and people were asking questions. "Most figured Papa (Doster) was up to something," he stated. "Soon there was talk of an operation 'down south.'"33