CIA File on Ray, Manuel

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

inexus, unasspecifically, alter years of full blast operation, the roof suddenly fell in on Juan Erquiaga. By now, he was a flush businessman with a wife and 10 children living at 550 Chattorton Ave. in the comfortable LA. suburb of La Puerta. Once again Juan Erquiaga blow the whole suit up because next to his love for guns came his love for money.

Not satisfied with his CIA payoffs, he tried to pick up some extra cash on the side. Relieved sources say his wondor guns began to and up in some peculiar hands. At the same time, he began to modify M-14 rifles into full automatics for the extremist National States Rights Party, a particularly vicious anti-Negro, anti-Jewish guerrilla gang which has its headquarters in Birmingham, Alc. It requires its members

to worn white shirts, black ties, black Sam Browne belts, black trousers, and an arm band emblazoned with a thunderbolt insignia.

As recently as Sept. 1, 1968, the white supremacy outfit waged a gun battle against Negroes in Berea, Ky., leaving two dead, several injured, and 13 charged with murder.

The States Rights Party had a large following in California, some of whom had big mouths and whose bragging fell on the ears of an alert but anonymous local police officer. He promptly turned in a report on Enquiaga's activities and it came to the attention of Attorney General Thomas Lynch.

Attorney General Lynch, who later engineered legislation outlawing private armies in California, ordered a raid. Los Angeles county and state (plus federal) officers swooped down on the Eriquiaga plant, armed with a search warrant signed by Judge Fred W. Raab and issued to Deputy District Attorney Maurice Oppenheimer.

It was a big raid which netted only little fish-the big one got away.

Sheriff's deputies grabbed 373 automatic weapons (which they still have as evidence), and 100,000 rounds of ammunition 'Erquiaga's wife said he was in Panama. Police said he had hightailed it for Guatemala, where machine guns are very much in demand and where assassination has claimed 4,000 lives (including the U.S. Ambassador and two U.S. military attaches stationed there). It is possible Erquiaga. Castro's on-again, off-again employee, may have found work there in the current guerrilla war being waged against the government.

However, Erquiago, still wanted in Los Angeles, has never been seen since in the States. His disappearance opened some startling revelations. Among them, these

A possibility that President Lyndon Johnson personally knew about the plant and its operation. A former aide who lives in Pico Rivera, Calif. told a reporter he presented an Enriquega Special to the President "as a favor to Juan."

Malcolm P. Warner, then supervisor of the L.A. Bureau of the Internal Revenue Services Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division, charged with enforcing the Federal Firearms Act, said he didn't have any knowledge of Erquiaga's wrongdoing. Juan, he said, had a federal permit.

True enough, admitted the scribbles of

fice, but Kruguaza did not have state

authorization for the manufacture, possession,

sale or transportation of such weapons

Clearly, the CIA had shipped up.

Perhaps Iquiquaga did not have local permits because he had a local record. He laterly, it was revealed by the IRS that Juan had been arrested in Lynwood, Calif., for making machine guns without any kind of permit in 1953 and that for four years he had been a fugitive. He gave himself up, paid only a $500 fine and was back in business until the big raid.

Lowell Knudson, another Erquiace associate at the sun plant, was convicted of possession of illegal firearms and Sned a mere $100 and put on probation for three years by Pomona (Calif.) Superior Court Judge Howard McClain.

But that didn't end the Erquiaca case. At least 100 of his guns vanished to reportedly reappear in a secret San Fernando Valley cache to become the nucleus of still another illegal operation—this one run by the Minutemen.

Lloyd Pullen, of Long Beach, a 20-year-old one-time lieutenant of Minuteman National Commander Robert DePugh, revealed to this writer that the extremists were unable to buy enough automatic weapons in any single market, open or underground

They were forced to go into manufacturing. Pullen said. The ex-Minuteman, who has now formed his own "home defense" unit with the backing of some John Birch Society members, declared he broke with. Delpugh because the national commander "was too kooky, a real Nazi bastard." Pullen had no connection with the guns.

The underground gun-making remained secret for some time. Then, early in 1905, DePugh and some of his cohorts allegedly attempted to hold up a bank in the Northwest as "part of a guerrilla warfare training exercise."

He was indicted Feb. 20, 1968, by a grand jury at Seattle. Wash., on a charge of conspiracy to commit bank robbery. The U.S. Attorney at Seattle won the indictment but now refuses to reveal details of the case, refusing to answer written or telephone requests for particulars. Why he shrouds the case in mystery at this point cannot be determined.

DePugh is now wanted by the FBI and is the object of an international manhunt. Presumably, he fled the U.S. by way of Canada, a la James Earl Ray. But he has communicated with newsmen. He sent a letter, saying in part:

"We are fugitives, not because we made machine guns, or robbed banks, or kidnapped little girls. We are fugitives because we openly opposed traitors in our own government. We are not criminals—we are political refugees."

He is going to have a tough time convincing a jury of that when he is caught; for he has a long record and has led a rough guerrilla outfit not noted for its bravery. In 1966, a Minuteman testified during a trial on a firearms count that DelPugh's men once discussed assassinating Sen. J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a scheme to put cyanide gas in the air-conditioning ducts at the United Nations building in New York.