CIA File on Ray, Manuel

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Further, the U.S. military has been an unwitting Castro gave him some cash and lots of rank, source of arms to these same elements which, He made Irquaga commander of his ordnance together with Cis-supplied arms constitutes one department. When the Cuban Communist swopt of the gravest threats to the country today. dictator Datista out of power and into exile.

The shabby building at 15036 E. Proctor Avon in the City of Industry, a Los Angeles suburb, looks like any of a score of other small manufacturing plants in the area. It could turn out lamp shades, dog collars, aluminum earings, or can openers. Maybe it has at some time. But for years it was one of several factories where a mysterious Peruvian named Juan Erquiaga, a 50-lish bootie browed gun genius, churned out machine guns illegally ... with the blessings of the CiAl.

Tio Erquiage Arms Company sought anonymity and got it for years. It was organized and designed so skillfully owners of neighboring plants did not know what was being made next door. "Paint, I think," guessed one neighbor.

Gut behind the exterior of normalcy and calm there was furious activity. Machino gun parts wore stampod and tooled. Ammunition clips wore shaped and wolded. Barrois wore chambered and stocks wore fitted.

Born in Lima, Poru, he studied at the Escuela Militar (military school; there and from 1940 to 1944 according to police records served in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant. Returning to Poru, he was graduated from the Politecnico Principal del Poru as a tool designer. But after having tasted life in the U.S. and realizing he could ply his trade more rewardingly here, he came back to the States and became a naturalized citizen in 1956.

Every employo of the plant was a guerd. There was a loaded gun behind every door, under every latho, always near at hand. And over this busy, deadly business presided Juan Erquiaga, a major loquuo merchant of death whose goods were for sale to the highest bidder. Or to whoover the CIA said "Selil"

A genius with guns, he had trouble with language. "I spent many hours learning English so I could communicate my ideas to others," he once called.

And he had ideas, plenty of them . . . and all of them lothal. Even before he came to the U.S., Erquiaga invented many types of weapons. Once here as a citizen, he put his fearsome talent to work by opening a firearms manufacturing shop in South Gate, another Los Angeles suburb.

Military rifles were his specialty . . . modifications of old guns that under his magic touch could fire faster and deadlier than their inventors had over dreamed. Eager customers from South and Central America, where the winds of revolution blow constant and hot, computed with homogrown kook organizations, such as the Minuteman and California Rangers for his products.

Two years later, Erquiaga smolled bigger game. Fidel Castro was on the rise in Cuba and no needed man like Juan Erquiaga. Fidel waved monoy under Erquiaga's bulbous nose and the Peruvian roasted like a starving tiger smolling fresh meat.

Erquiaga stayed on Felii promised him new glory and he delivered, making Juan a minister of public works. Erquiaga was riding high with the robels. But then-in 1908 he found it expedient to flee

But then-in 1903-ho found it expedient to flog Cuba.

"I do not like to talk about those days. I . . . wo . . . were betrayed," he said later. What betrayed him was a love not for freedom but for money. The big loot was not in Latin America but in southern California, where blazing sunshine fails to illuminate many dark plots and counterplots.

By 1962 Encuiaga was back in the big league, this time in El Monts, not far from the scene of his earlor success as an arms maker for the malcontents. Once again he was turning out fast-firing rifles. But within three months he was into something deeper and deeper.

Eruquila came back to the Golden Stato via Mexico, where he took a brief filing at making machine guns for anticastro forces. He never had any political convictions cash couldn't change.

In the City of Industry plant, he was grinding out 20,000 machine guns. And what guns!

Feather light (six pounds loaded) and of his own design; the Erquicaga weapons are chambored for 9 mm parabellium ammo, carry 32 rounds and fire

1,300 rounds per minute. They combino full and selectivo automatic firing. The action is inortia, or "blowback."

Judd Smith, a California journalist and small arms export, says they out-perform existing U.S. military submachine guns both in terms of rate of fire and accuracy in short and prolonged bursts.

"The most notable feature of them is that the muzzle doesn't climb uncontrollably during sustained bursts, permitting amazing accuracy." Smith says.

Erquiaga proudly pointed out that the muzzle is prevented from climbing by a special device of his own dosign affixed to it. "Other similar devices have been designed by tho U.S. Army, but nono has ever proved as effective as this," he boasted with some justification.

Juan Erquiaga had a good thing going for him and he knew just how to keep it rolling . . . deep underground. Business was great. Even if Juan did not have the right permits hanging on his factory wall, he had something better-sovoral things, in fact.

Ona was a contract for 500 machine guns signed by Manuel Roy, leader of Junta Revolution Airia Cubana (JURS), an anti-Castro outfit then trying to oust Fidel, with the CIA picking up the tab.

A prominent Cuban exile now living in Los Angeles boasts that he personally delivered 550,000 advance cash to Engliaga as part of $250,000 put up by the CIA. The 500 machine guns were to be the first of thousands.

"I was working for the CIA/" the exile drags. "I made the payoff. No, I'm not certain where the guns were supposed to go. But I was hoping they were scheduled for anybody fighting fidel."