U.S. ATTORNEY IN SAN DIEGO DISMISSED
By Edward T. Pound, Special To the New York Times
April 6, 1982
President Reagan today dismissed William H. Kennedy, the United States Attorney in San Diego, for publicly confirming the identity of a key American intelligence source who is the subject of a Federal grand jury investigation.
Mr. Kennedy's dismissal was announced tonight by a Justice Department spokesman. The President acted after Mr. Kennedy, who is 51 years old, refused to step down despite requests from the Justice Department. Last week, Attorney General William French Smith recommended that Mr. Reagan dismiss Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy, who began his term in office last fall, serves, like all United States Attorneys, at the pleasure of the President. Angered Superiors in March
Mr. Kennedy angered his superiors in the Justice Department when he told The San Diego Union last month that the Central Intelligence Agency had played a role in blocking prosecution of the intelligence source, Miguel Nassar Haro, in a major criminal case. Mr. Nassar is the former chief of Mexico's national police, the Directorate of Federal Security.
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The Union quoted Mr. Kennedy as saying that since November, the Justice Department had been withholding approval to indict Mr. Nassar in an $8 million case involving automobile theft because the intelligence agency had advised the department that Mr. Nassar was its ''most important source in Mexico and Central America.''
Tonight, Arthur P. Brill, deputy spokesman for the Attorney General, issued a statement that said that Mr. Kennedy had been advised by E. Pendleton James, director of White House personnel, that he had been dismissed.
The Justice Department statement said that Mr. Kennedy was being removed because he had ''made improper comments about a pending criminal case.''
In a written statement tonight, Mr. Kennedy said: ''A statement attributed to me in The San Diego Union article, dated March 26, 1982, was an accurate confirmation. There is nothing more to add or apologize for.'' Mr. Kennedy said that he made a decision not to resign but was informed today by Mr. James and Associate Attorney General Rudolph W. Giuliani that ''the President has signed my dismissal papers.''
He said the order was effective at 5 P.M. today and ''I will comply with the President's orders.'' Comments 'Highly Prejudicial'
The statement said, moreover, that Mr. Kennedy's press comments ''were highly prejudicial to the interests of the United States.'' Mr. Kennedy, who was an assistant district attorney in San Diego County before becoming the chief Federal prosecutor in the area, was appointed United States Attorney last Nov. 7 by the Federal District Court in San Diego to fill a vacancy. He was later nominated by President Reagan for the four-year term and was sworn in on Dec. 23.
The prosecutor enjoyed wide support among Federal judges and public officials in San Diego who hoped to save his job after the controversy over his press statements emerged. Last Friday, Pete Wilson, the Mayor of San Diego, telephoned Edwin Meese 3d, the White House counselor, in an attempt to persuade the White House to keep Mr. Kennedy.
According to a source close to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Meese, who had supported Mr. Kennedy for the nomination, told the Mayor that he would not intercede. Mr. Meese was said to have reported that the Attorney General had already recommended Mr. Kennedy's dismissal and that the White House would not overrule Mr. Smith. Data on Guerrilla Activities
According to American officials, Mr. Nassar provided crucial intelligence information to the United States, some involving the activities of guerrilla leaders from El Salvador and Guatemala.
Administration officials said that under Mr. Nassar, the Mexican national police conducted joint operations with the C.I.A. and passed on sensitive information about Soviet and Cuban assistance to guerrilla forces in El Salvador.
Mr. Nassar was appointed head of the Directorate of Federal Security in January 1977. He left the post last January and his whereabouts are unknown.
According to Justice Department officials, Mr. Nassar was implicated by Federal investigators in a ring that has stolen more than $8 million in automobiles from the San Diego area and smuggled them to Mexico.
Twenty-eight Mexicans were indicted by a Federal grand jury in San Diego last year, including three agents of the Mexican national police, for participating in the theft ring. Justice Department officials said two of the suspects had implicated Mr. Nassar.
A version of this article appears in print on April 6, 1982, Section A, Page 16 of the National edition with the headline: U.S. ATTORNEY IN SAN DIEGO DISMISSED.
Posted by shylock92008
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[https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=LITEMPO-12](https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=LITEMPO-12)
He was probably one of the highest level C.I.A. agents of that era. The President of the United States intervened and fired the AUSA who tried to prosecute Nazar haro,
Jefferson Morley interviewed Nazar Haro about his career in “Our man in Mexico”
Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA Kindle Edition
by Jefferson Morley
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTMC54I/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTMC54I/)
Cryptonym: LITEMPO-12
Definition: Miguel Nazar Haro, aka Angus J. Laverdure aka Juan Noriega – a Mexico City station agent close to Win Scott between 1960-1971 who became head of the DFS in 1976 before his US conviction in the 1980s for smuggling stolen cars.
Status: Probable
Discussion: One of the most important men in the history of the incredibly corrupt DFS.
Sources:
Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico (2008), p. 340.
Morley writes: “In a February 2006 interview, Nazar describes his close working relationship and friendship with Win (Scott) between 1960 and 1971…Nazar was a key figure in a shadowy security unit called C-47, according to Sergio Aguayos’s account of(journalist Victor Rico) Galan’s arrest. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, p. 128. Goodpasture told the story of Galan’s arrest and the role of C-47 in her history of the station, with emphasis on the role of a Mexican official known as LITEMPO-12. The similarity of the two accounts is strong evidence that Nazar was LITEMPO-12.
104-10414-10124: MEXICO CITY STATION HISTORY
“LITEMPO-12 was…a subordinate of LITEMPO-4.” (Fernando Gutierrez Barrios)”. Starting in early 1966 he specialized in collecting reports on “subversive targets” such as “the CP, Cuban exiles, Trotskyites, and Soviet Bloc cultural groups”.
Ted Shackley, Blond Ghost, p. 459.
Shackley states that the code name for LITEMPO-12 was “Angus J. Laverdure.” He also states that his real name was “Juan Noriega” a Mexican station official. [https://www.maryferrell.org/search.html?q=%22juan%20noriega%22](https://www.maryferrell.org/search.html?q=%22juan%20noriega%22)
104-10234-10001: MARTUFFI REQUESTS LAVERDURE CABLE DIR ORIGINAL INFO ON CUBELAS CASE
3/14/66: Laverdure/Nazar Haro was asked for his information on (Rolando) Cubela at the time of his arrest during March 1966. For more details, also see 104-10234-10153.
1993.07.31.10:16:05:180032: MEMO FOR THE RECORD – ROLANDO MASFERRER, JR
In 1972, a CIA officer refers to Nazar as “‘Chief of Political Police’ (actually he was at the time the Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service), DFS, a political and intelligence organization working within the Secretariat of Government.”
180-10142-10410: MEXICO CITY
In June 1978, HSCA members went to Mexico City “and met with the assistant director of the Mexican Security Service, Nazar. Mr. Nazar gave an oral resume of the interviews that were conducted in 1963. He said that the files had to be formally requested before he could consider releasing them.”
Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and Death of JFK (1996), p. 105.
“DFS was the chief point of contact for both CIA and FBI officials with the Mexican government. When the DFS chief, Miguel Nazar Haro, was secretly indicted by a U.S. grand jury in San Diego for his participation in North America’s largest stolen car ring, the CIA blocked the indictment because of Nazar’s ‘indispensability as a source of intelligence in Mexico and Central America.’ “One is struck by the recurring importance of this U.S.-protected Mexican gray alliance as a source of disinformation, both before and after November 1963, about Oswald and the JFK murder. Nazar Haro was a long-time personal friend of the CIA’s Mexican station chief, Win Scott, to the extent of giving him a Cadillac for his own use, and Win Scott’s station in turn played a key role in the transmission of false stories about Oswald in Mexico. “The Gobernacion of Mexico also transmitted a number of altered or suspicious documents on Oswald, such as the forged bus manifest (24 WH 673) and the list of tourist cards that suppressed the name of William Gaudet (24 WH 679, cf. 24 WH 609, 25 WH 616) …”Noe Palomares, the Gobernacion official transmitting these documents (24 WH 682, 680) was also connected indirectly to witnesses implicating Oswald in a ‘phase-one’ Communist conspiracy. (3 AH 301). And Bernardo de Torres, a Cuban-exile drug trafficker with intimate links to Nazar Haro, became in 1966-67 a source of dubious reports about Miami for the hapless Garrison investigation.”
Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine (2010), pp. 45-46, 57.
“Andrew Reding at the World Policy Institute…described the ‘variety of specialized police and intelligence agencies (that) emerged under the aegis of the Secretariat of Government. The most notorious of these agencies was the Federal Intelligence Directorate (Direccion Federal de Seguridad) (DFS), and its most notorious directors were Fernando Gutierrez Barrios (1964-1970), Javier Garcia Paniagua (1970-1976) and Miguel Nazar Haro (1976-1981). The Gutierrez-Garcia-Nazar triumvirate was…the force behind the formation of the White Brigade, a clandestine paramilitary police unit that was responsible for the ‘disappearance’ of thousands of opponents of the regime between 1972 and 1980, of which more than 500 never reappeared.'” (pp. 45-46) Nazar was accused by a star US government witness of having “protected drug-smuggling operations and profited from the sale of seized narcotics” while serving in the DFS. (p. 57)
Emma Best, “Mexican spymaster’s car theft ring shows CIA’s toleration for corruption”, Muckrock (2017): [https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/oct/17/nazer-car-theft-ring/](https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/oct/17/nazer-car-theft-ring/)
“The web of corruption surrounding Nazar, however, connected to more than just grand theft auto, with ties to narcotics trafficking, the torture and disappearance of numerous dissidents, and at the murder of DEA agent “Kiki” Camarena Salazar.” A report quotes FBI agent John Foarde stating that “Mike Nazar” was developed for the FBI by George Munro. Munro’s crypt was LIMEW.
104-10408-10436: CABLE: ON 20 JUNE RECEIVED LETTER AND ATTACHMENTS SENT BY LUND
7/7/67 letter from Nazar to DFS Director Fernando Gutierrez (LITEMPO-4) about the student Oscar Contreras that saw LHO during his trip to Mexico City. Letter in Spanish. At p. 2 of 4: The Nazar letter was described as follows: “Art, this concerns info that R&A (Research and Analysis) passed (to) Jack Kauflman (aka Lund/William Broe) for relay to COS (chief of station) Mexico, the info having come from state department in Mexico and concerning a person who said he saw and talked with Oswald there.” Also see 104-10014-10016: 7/10/67 source on Oscar Contreras revealed to be LITEMPO-12.
104-10070-10180: CABLE CONCERNING TELEPHONE CALL.
12/4/69 cable from Mexico City to Director: “LITEMPO-12 received telephone call from Miami evening of 2 Dec from one Bernardo de Torres who identified himself as ‘Pentagon intelligence’ to report that a Swiss national residing in Mexico City, Jean Louis Crossier, is engaged in arms contraband from U.S…No station traces (on) either Crossier or de Torres. Would appreciate traces on Bernardo de Torres and Jean Louis Crossier. Please indicate what may be passed (to) liaison.”
Elaine Shannon, Desperados (Viking, 1988) pp. 181-184
“(Operation Cargo) began in 1980, when some California highway patrolmen arrested two Mexican car thieves. One suspect became an FBI informant; he said that he belonged to an organization that was stealing thousands of Jaguars, Jeeps, Porsches, and other luxury cars on order, right down to the color and upholstery style, for VIPs in Mexico City…a young FBI agent named Bobby Montoya penetrated the ring, posing as the cousin of the informant…Montoya was able to present enough evidence to obtain the indictments of thirteen DFS officials for allegedly controlling the ring, among them Esteban Guzman, the highest career officer in the agency…(the informant) said that in November 1979 he had accompanied DFS agent Capriano Rodriguez to the home of Miguel Nazar Haro, DFS Director since 1977, and had seen Rodriguez give Nazar Haro a stolen yellow Dodge van…U.S. Attorney (William) Kennedy wrote letters urging (Asst AG Lowell) Jensen to approve the indictment (against Nazar Haro) arguing that the Mexican government had made no effort to recompense the thousands of Americans victimized by the ring. Montoya’s partners at the FBI estimated that over a period of years the ring had stolen four thousand cars, worth more than $30 million. On March 26, 1982, in a story in the San Diego Union, reporter Jon Standefer wrote that Kennedy had confirmed to him that the CIA was blocking the indictment because of Nazar Haro’s ‘indispensability as a source of intelligence in Mexico and Central America’…(a) grand jury indicted Nazar Haro on a string of car-theft and conspiracy charges…Nazar Haro was arrested late in the afternoon of Friday, April 23, and spent 27 hours in jail…a lawyer dispatched from somewhere in Mexico bailed Nazar Haro out with $200,000 in cash. Nazar Haro fled across the border and was listed as a fugitive, *along with) other indicted DFS officials, including ex-commandantes Esteban Guzman, Javier Garcia Morales, Ramon Peseros, and Guillermo Lira.”
See Also: LITEMPO
LITEMPO-4
LIMEW
Contributors: Jefferson Morley • Bill Simpich