As an intern at the Municipal Archives this fall, it has been my privilege to help process the NYPD Intelligence Records, aka the Handschu collection. Very large—more than 520 cubic feet—and in high demand, this collection is made up...
As an intern at the Municipal Archives this fall, it has been my privilege to help process the NYPD Intelligence Records, aka the Handschu collection. Very large—more than 520 cubic feet—and in high demand, this collection is made up of records created by a unit of the New York Police Department Intelligence Division, the Bureau of Special Services, which had the goal of monitoring “subversives.”
Playboy Magazine, January 1967. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
The material now held by the Archives is the result of decades’ worth of NYPD surveillance and investigation of both groups and individuals. This material spans the 1930s–1990s but is concentrated in the 1950s–1970s, and is divided into several series: for instance, Series 1.1 is for photographic records, while Series 1.4 and 1.5 are dedicated to small and large organizations respectively. Most of my hands-on work involved Series 1.2: Numbered Communications Files, which are thousands of reports created between 1951 and 1972. The reports are eclectic in their subject matter but tend to coalesce around topics like demonstrations, labor disputes, and security for public figures. The amount of material in the folders ranges from a single sheet to multiple brochures and clippings.
While processing these files, I recently came across a manila envelope with the arresting inscription: “Alleged plot by Cuban Nationalist Assoc. to fire bazooka at N.Y. Playboy Club.”
NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
Both pro- and anti-Castro activities are widely represented in the collection, but this particular case merited a closer look. Why the Playboy Club? And why a bazooka? Reading the enclosed Bureau of Special Services report, it became clear that despite their alleged target, the Cuban Nationalists Association’s grievance was actually with Playboy magazine. I also found that there had been previous terrorist incidents involving anti-Castro Cubans and bazookas.
The numbered BSS report is dated November 25, 1966, and has the subject line “Information that anti-Castro Cubans have discussed planting of a live bazooka shell at the Playboy Club, 5 East 59th Street, Manhattan.” Passing on information received by an FBI agent from an unknown source, it discloses: “The Cubans are allegedly angry with the Playboy management because of an article written in the October issue of Playboy magazine titled ‘Tropic of Cuba,’ by Pietro di Donato, in which the author described prostitution and homosexual circuses in Havana in 1939. They consider the article vicious and dirty and apparently are not satisfied with the apology tendered by the magazine.” Because the Cuban Nationalist Association had been tied to previous explosions between 1964 and 1966, the agent felt that this intelligence could not “be discounted.” This opinion may or may not be counterbalanced by the fact that interviews with group members led to statements like “the organization is currently disorganized and has no meeting place,” and also that a subsequent FBI report describes the information as coming from “a source, contact with whom has been insufficient to determine his reliability.”
NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
Along with the bombing of a Cuban ship, the bombing of Karl Marx’s grave, and the detonation of a bazooka in a suitcase at the Cuban Embassy in Canada, the Cuban Nationalist Association had been connected with the firing of a bazooka at the United Nations during an address by Che Guevara on December 11, 1964. The event was covered in the New York Times in articles such as “Bazooka Fired at U.N. as Cuban Speaks; Launched in Queens, Missile Explodes in East River,” “Three Castro Foes Arrested in Firing Of Bazooka at U.N.” and “Bazooka hearing is set for Jan. 6; 3 Cuban Suspects Called ‘Cooperative’ in Court.”
The first article reports: “A single shell from the bazooka, a portable rocket launcher used by the Army, arced across the river from Queens and fell harmlessly about 200 yards from shore. The blast sent up a geyser of water and rattled windows in the headquarters just as Major Guevara, Havana’s Minister of Industry, was denouncing the United States. [...] Later, strolling through the delegates’ lounge in his green fatigue uniform and highly polished black boots, he said, with a languid wave of his cigar, that the explosion ‘has given the whole thing more flavor.’ But the police saw no humor in the incident. Had the rocket shell crashed against the glass-and?concrete facade of the headquarters building, there would almost certainly have been casualties.” The weapon was identified as U.S. made. The “three Castro foes” of the second headline were members of the Cuban Nationalist Association, although the director of the group claimed to have no knowledge of the events. At their hearing, “Assistant District Attorney Edward N. Herman told the court, ‘Regardless of where one’s sympathies may lie…the United Nations is here in the City of New York, our guests if you will, and they have the right, I think, not to have bazookas fired at them.’”
FBI Report, December 5, 1966. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
FBI Report, NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
FBI Report, NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
Also included in the manila envelope were two pieces from the newspaper El Tiempo. The first was a Spanish-language article condemning Playboy, dated October 25, 1966 and entitled “Una Infamia de ‘Playboy’: ‘El Trópico de Cuba’” (English: “A Disgrace from ‘Playboy’: ‘Tropic of Cuba.’”
El Tiempo, October 25, 1966. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
El Tiempo, 1966. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
The second was a photocopy of an undated English-language article entitled “The Playboy Incident.” “No one sympathizes more with the anti-Castro Cubans than EL TIEMPO,” it begins. “In fact, many now in the picket lines against Castro, were in 1959 picketing the editor of EL TIEMPO at his home and his office, because he said Fidel Castro was a Communist and deserved no support from this country.” Having established the publication’s bona fides, it continues, “But we cannot understand the fanatics who get out of hand, who make use of an article in EL TIEMPO to commit crimes and wreak violence.” The article makes the points––not in this order––that the Playboy Club is a separate entity from the magazine, that the author of the offending article and the editor of Playboy had already both issued a public apology, and that “on careful reading, not one of the women with whom [the author] claims to have been intimate were Cuban. They were all foreigners living in Cuba.” Finally, the author exposes and repudiates the (alleged) plan to attack the club: “What the public did not know––and what we are revealing here for the first time is a result of the insidious rumours to the effect that EL TIEMPO, ‘sold out’ to the Playboy magazine: some hot-headed Cubans were planning to set off a bomb at the Playboy Club––which could have cost many innocent lives, including anti-Castro Cuban employees of the club itself.”
Playboy memo, December 6, 1966. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.
Anticipating more controversy ahead of the publication of an interview with Fidel Castro in the January 1967 issue, Playboy Club co-owner Arnold Morton sent out a memo on December 6 in which he reminded his staff of the journalistic context behind this and other controversial interviews (“If you read Playboy regularly, I am sure you are aware of the wide range of personalities and subjects it deals with in each issue”) and rallies them to a defense of the brand’s core values (“This Castro interview may meet with strong reaction too, but Playboy Magazine has always believed in the right of groups or individuals to disagree. It is for this reason that the magazine often serves as a forum for persons and viewpoints that would otherwise never be published in a mass magazine”). With respect to the original “Tropic of Cuba” controversy, he quotes an apology from the article’s writer Pietro Di Donato: “At no point was it my intention to insult or defame the wonderful people of Cuba. As a man of 100% Latin origin, I have long been sympathetic with the plight of the Cuban people.” It should be noted however that this pan-Latin camaraderie was not shared by the author of the critical El Tiempo article, Miguel Angel Martin, who refers to Di Donato throughout as an “‘escritor’ ítalo-americano” (“Italian-American ‘writer’”).
In addition to the above typewritten reports and periodicals, the folder created by the Bureau of Special Services held a piece of paper covered in handwritten notes relating to the investigation. The sheet includes phrases like “Lee Lockwood, author of article, works with Cuban Mission,” the names of the Puerto Rican independence activist Juan Brás and El Tiempo editor Stanley Ross connected by arrows to the word “fight,” and my favorite, if I am reading it correctly: “4 plans to dynamite––none came off.”