Frank Sturgis - Watergate, JFK Assassination, Anti-Castro Activity - FBI and CIA Files

Frank Sturgis - Watergate, JFK Assassination, Anti-Castro Activity - FBI and CIA Files

3,579 pages of FBI, CIA, The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Rockefeller Commission (Also known as The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States), and the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) files covering Frank Sturgis and issues related to him. Some documents in this collection were not declassified until November 2021.

The files contain a text transcript of all recognizable text embedded into the graphic image of each page of each document, creating a searchable finding aid. Text searches can be done across all files in the collection.

Frank Anthony Sturgis (1924–1993) also known as Frank Angelo Fiorini and Frank Anthony Fachetti was one of the five burglars caught breaking into Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex. Before this he served in several branches of the United States military. In 1958, during the Cuban Revolution, he fought against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's forces alongside Fidel Castro. Later he joined anti-Castro forces and engaged in assassination attempts against Castro. The CIA has vigorously denied Sturgis’s claims of having once being employed by the Agency.

The files in this collection covers Sturgis' paramilitary activities in Cuba, his involvement and ties to assassins and assassination plots, accusations about Sturgis having involvement in the Kennedy assassination and an alleged meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald, his involvement in the Watergate break-in, and connections to a break-in at the Chilean Embassy.

One highlight in this collection is a July 20, 1976, memo from former CIA Director James R. Schlesinger which states that CIA Director Colby told him Sturgis had not been on the payroll for a number of years.

Another is a 128-page CIA security file on Sturgis, which states that, "Mr. Sturgis was never recruited by the Agency, but has been associated with Mr. Eugenio Rolando Martinez Careaga, an Agency contact since the 1960's.”

In 1976, Sturgis began claiming that Castro and Che Guevara had Kennedy killed, and that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Cuban agent. He later reportedly claimed to have met Oswald in Miami shortly before the Kennedy assassination.

The document page count by agency in this collection breaks down as follows:

CIA: 1,130 pages
FBI: 234 pages
House Select Committee on Assassinations: 1,278 pages
Rockefeller Commission: 159 pages
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI): 736 pages
State Department: 42 pages