Frank Anthony Sturgis (December 9, 1924 – December 4, 1993), born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the five
Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of the
presidency of Richard Nixon.
He served in several branches of the United States military and in the
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
of 1958, and worked as an undercover operative for the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
.
[Jim Hunt and Bob Risch, ''Cuba on My Mind: The Secret Lives of Watergate Burglar Frank Sturgis'' (New York: A Forge Book, December 30, 2009, p. 35.]
Early life and military service
When still a child, his family moved to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, Pennsylvania. On October 5, 1942, in his senior year of high school, 17-year-old Frank Angelo Fiorini joined the
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
and served under Colonel "Red Mike"
Merritt A. Edson
Major General Merritt Austin Edson, Sr. (April 25, 1897 – August 14, 1955), known as "Red Mike", was a general in the United States Marine Corps. Among the decorations he received were the Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, the Silver Star, ...
in the
First Marine Raider Battalion in the Pacific Theater during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
.
"On April 14, 1942,
William Donovan, as Coordinator of Information (forerunner of the
Office of Strategic Services), activated units charged with gathering intelligence, harassing the Japanese through
guerrilla actions, identifying targets for the Army Air Force to bomb, and rescuing downed Allied airmen." This was what led to
Stilwell's Chinese forces,
Wingate's Raiders,
Merrill's Marauders
Merrill’s Marauders (named after Frank Merrill) or Unit ''Galahad'', officially named the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), was a United States Army long range penetration special operations jungle warfare unit, which fought in the South ...
, in the war, and Frank got trained in
Guerrilla tactics
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run ta ...
and gathering intelligence which became useful in his later events.
Honorably discharged as a
corporal
Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non- ...
in 1945, he enrolled at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six re ...
but left college and joined the
Norfolk Police Department
The Norfolk Police Department (NPD) is the primary law enforcement agency servicing 242,803 people within of jurisdiction within Norfolk, Virginia.
Homeland Security Division
The Homeland Security Division, comprising the Harbor Patrol Unit, ...
on June 5, 1946.
He soon discovered a corrupt payoff system and brought it to the attention of his superiors, who told him to overlook the illegal activities. On October 5, 1946, he had a confrontation with his sergeant and resigned the same day. For the next 18 months, he managed the Havana-Madrid tavern in Norfolk that catered to foreigners, mostly
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
n merchant seamen.
On November 9, 1947, Fiorini joined the
United States Naval Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...
at the Norfolk Naval Air Station and learned to fly while still working at the tavern. He was honorably discharged on August 30, 1948, and joined the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
the next day. He was sent immediately to
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, where the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
had closed the land routes during the
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, ro ...
, and he became a member of General
Lucius Clay's honor guard. Two weeks after the USSR reopened the land routes on May 11, 1949, Fiorini was honorably discharged. As a
Marine Raider
The Marine Raiders are special operations forces originally established by the United States Marine Corps during World War II to conduct amphibious light infantry warfare. " Edson's" Raiders of 1st Marine Raider Battalion and " Carlson's" Rai ...
, Fiorini had worked behind enemy lines gathering intelligence, and during his Army tenure in Berlin and
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
, he had a top secret clearance and worked in an intelligence unit whose primary target was the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. Fiorini started to believe Russia was a threat, and he became a lifelong militant. Returning to Norfolk in 1952, he took a job managing the Cafe Society tavern, then partnered with its owner, Milton Bass, to co-purchase and manage The Top Hat Nightclub in
Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...
.
On September 23, 1952, Frank Fiorini filed a petition in the Circuit Court of the City of
Norfolk, Virginia, to change his name to Frank Anthony Sturgis, adopting the surname of his stepfather Ralph Sturgis, whom his mother had married in 1937. His new name resembled that of Hank Sturgis, the fictional hero of
E. Howard Hunt's 1949 novel, ''Bimini Run'', whose life parallels Frank Sturgis' life from 1942 to 1949 in certain salient respects.
Moves to Cuba, joins Castro forces
In 1956, Sturgis moved to Cuba, and went to Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras. Sturgis moved to
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
in 1957, where the Cuban wife of his uncle Angelo Vona introduced him to former Cuban president
Carlos Prío, who joined with other Cubans opposing dictator
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
to plot their return to power. They were sending money to
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
to support
Fidel Castro. Prio asked Sturgis to go to
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
to join up with Castro and to report back to the exiled powers in Miami, so he went down and met with Castro. In 1958, he made contact with the Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba at the US Consulate in Santiago. He worked as an informer for the agency with his control officer Sam Jenis. Sturgis also became involved running guns to Cuba,
along with mobster
Santo Trafficante, and not surprisingly was arrested for illegal possession of arms, but released without charge. In 1959, Sturgis had contact with casinos in Cuba and some say met Lewis McWillie, mobster Traficante's man in Cuba, and the manager of the
Tropicana Casino who by his own testimony was a known acquaintance of
Jack Ruby.
Sturgis met up with Castro and his 400 rebels in the
Sierra Maestra
The Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. The range falls mainly within the Santiago de Cuba and in Granma Provinces. Some view it a ...
mountains. Sturgis offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner.
Using money from anti-Batista Cuban exiles in Miami and some suspect the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert
Samuel Cummings
Samuel Cummings, (February 7, 1927 – April 29, 1998) was an American small arms dealer. He founded the International Armament Corporation (also known as Interarms or Interarmco) in 1953, a company which came to dominate the free world market ...
'
International Armament Corporation in
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C.
In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...
. Sturgis explained later that he chose to throw in with Castro rather than Prío because Fidel was a soldier, a man of action, whereas Prío was a politician, more a man of words.
In March 1958, Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught
and other
26th of July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare. When Castro seized power, a rebel firing squad on
San Juan Hill
San Juan Hill is a series of hills to the east of Santiago, Cuba, running north to south. The area is known as the San Juan Heights or in Spanish ''Alturas de San Juan'' before Spanish–American War of 1898, and are now part of Lomas de San Ju ...
executed 71 of their opponents on January 11, 1959, into an awaiting 40-foot (12.2 m) ditch that had been opened with a bulldozer. Although Sturgis did not take part in the execution, he was photographed afterwards holding a rifle on top of the covered mass grave.
Castro then appointed Sturgis gambling czar and director of security and intelligence for the air force, in addition to his position as a captain in the 26th of July Movement. Sturgis went to Miami on June 2, 1959, with Alan McDonald while "supervising the investigation of several American gamblers with criminal records that operate casinos in Havana." They requested from Metropolitan Criminal Intelligence Supervisor Frank Kappel information on "
Meyer and
Jake Lansky, Joe Silesi aka Joe Rivers and Santos Trafficante," that was provided to them six days later after the Cuban government sent an official written request. He was introduced to two men that were transported to Cuba from
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
to assist in the organization of the revolution and Frank saw they were clearly communist. He began to sound out those that he knew were anti-communist including
Camilo Cienfuegos, as he knew leaders like
Raúl Castro and Che Guevara were communist, but he was unsure about
Fidel Castro. Sturgis defected the following month with Revolutionary Air Force chief Commandant
Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz (July 8, 1926 in Havana, Cuba – June 26, 2008 Miami, U.S.) was Chief of the Revolutionary Air Force of Cuba under Fidel Castro, before and after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. He is great-grandson of a sister of the Cuban nation ...
and they joined the anti-Castro exile opposition.
Sturgis participated with him a few months later in an anti-Castro leaflet-dropping raid over Cuba. Sturgis formed the Anti-Communist Brigade which Hans Tanner in his book "Counter-Revolutionary Agent", says the organization was "being financed by dispossessed hotel and gambling owners" from Cuba. The Border Patrol in Miami reported that Sturgis was involved in a CIA operation being financed by Sergio Rojas (former Cuban Ambassador to Great Britain) to overthrow Castro. It has been claimed, with little in the way of evidence, that Sturgis was involved in helping the CIA organize the
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fin ...
, for whose ultimate failure he blamed President Kennedy. Sturgis recruited 19 year old
Marita Lorenz
Ilona Marita Lorenz (18 August 1939 – 31 August 2019) was a German woman who had an affair with Fidel Castro in 1959 and in January 1960 was involved in an assassination attempt by the CIA on Castro's life.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she testifi ...
, who was close to Fidel Castro, and she took CIA pills, which she hid in her face cream, to poison Castro, but the plot failed. According to Lorenz, she met Sturgis again before the Kennedy assassination in 1963 with others planning a big event.
Lorenz stated that she joined Sturgis traveling to Dallas after the meeting.
[ Lorenz later testified about this Kennedy assassination plot before the ]House Select Committee on Assassinations
The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The HSCA completed its ...
(HSCA).
Sturgis was claimed to be a member of Operation 40, a Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
-sponsored counterintelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...
group composed of Cuban exile
A Cuban exile is a person who emigrated from Cuba in the Cuban exodus. Exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they migrated during the exodus.
Demographics Social class
Cuban exiles would come from various ec ...
s. The group was formed to seize control of the Cuban government
Cuba has had a socialist political system since 1959 based on the "one state – one party" principle. Cuba is constitutionally defined as a Marxist–Leninist state. The present Constitution of Cuba, which was passed in a 2019 referendum, also ...
after the Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fin ...
. The operation was concentrating on Cuba and were operating out of Mexico.
Despite his claimed involvement in numerous CIA sponsored operations including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1975 Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
{{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
office complex in Washington. The phone number of Hunt was found in address books of the burglars. Reporters were able to link the break-in to the White House. The burglars had made an earlier successful entry to the same location several weeks earlier, but returned to fix a malfunctioning device and to photograph more documents.
had paid the burglars to obtain information about his political opponents.
Sturgis was portrayed in ''
.
and James W. McCord were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping.
Sturgis was convicted in 1973 with Max Gonzalez and
in a federal court in Miami (73-597-CR-CA) of transporting cars stolen in Texas into Mexico. This prompted
(DEA) Acting Regional Director David W. Costa to send a letter to Judge C. Clyde Atkins on March 10, 1975, indicating that Sturgis had been covertly cooperating with the DEA. Sturgis served 14 months in the minimum security federal prison in
. After leaving prison, Sturgis served as a Miami police informant and continued providing intelligence on the anti-Castro activities of Dr. Orlando Bosch.
St. George's article was published in ''
'' magazine in August 1974. Sturgis claims that the Watergate burglars had been instructed to find a particular document in the Democratic Party offices. This was a "secret memorandum from the Castro government" that included details of CIA covert actions. Sturgis said "that the Castro government suspected the CIA did not tell the whole truth about these operations even to American political leaders". In response to Sturgis' repeated braggadocio to the news media, the CIA issued a public statement on May 30, 1975, indicating that he had never been connected with them "in any way."
In an interview with
on June 20, 1975, Sturgis stated, "I was a spy. I was involved in assassination plots and conspiracies to overthrow several foreign governments including Cuba,
. I smuggled arms and men into Cuba for Castro and against Castro. I broke into intelligence files. I stole and photographed secret documents. That's what spies do."
Sturgis was denied a pardon by President
.
. He also made claims that other individuals were involved in the assassination of Kennedy.
shortly after the assassination of Kennedy.
The men later became known as the "three tramps". According to
, allegations that these men were involved in a conspiracy originated from theorist
who compiled the photographs in 1966 and 1967, and subsequently turned them over to
. Appearing before a nationwide audience on the December 31, 1968 episode of ''
'', Garrison held up a photo of the three and suggested they were involved in the assassination. Later, in 1974, assassination researchers
compared photographs of the men to people they believed to be suspects involved in a conspiracy and said that two of the men were Watergate burglars Hunt and Sturgis. Comedian and civil rights activist
helped bring national media attention to the allegations against Hunt and Sturgis in 1975 after obtaining the comparison photographs from Weberman and Canfield. Immediately after obtaining the photographs, Gregory held a press conference that received considerable coverage and his charges were reported in ''
''.
{{R from move ...