CIA Reading Room cia-rdp90-00552r000404380001-3: BLACK-EDGED LEGEND IS ENDED IN A VULGAR MIAMI BAR BRAWL

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STAT WASHINGTON POST 6 FEBPUARY 1983 Biath-Edged Legend Is Ende Vulgar Miami 1 D. e veteran had been a CIA oper- By Edward Cody W2_chlnEton Post SW I Wrtur MLkMI-Ricardo Morales depart- ed life as he had lived it, violently and under a cloak of so much in- trigue that no one can be sure what happened. As his friends and enemies tell it, however, one thing is certain: the .32-caliber bullet that penetrated the Cuban exile's head from behind eli- minated a man who had made him- self into a black-edged legend to be told and cherished throughout Mi- ami, Latin America and, perhaps, Langley, Va. After a month of investigation, -the Dade County Public Safety De- partment has concluded that the spy, counterspy, mercenary, con- fessed murderer, bomber, informer, dope dealer and operator extraordi- nary was shot in a vulgar bar brawl, enraged because he thought someone had called him a maricon, or homo- sexual. Morales allegedly was killed just : before midnight Dec. 20 while reach- ing for the .38 strapped to his ankle in what Detective Steve Roadruck concluded was justifiable homicide for which no one should be charged. 'If you believe that, I've got a piece of expressway I'll sell you cheap,' said one of Morales' attor- neys, John Komorvwsld- "I'm con- vinced that sombody needed Mo- rales dead and just executed him. There's no question about it; it was a , set up. Who? God only knows. It could have been the Cubans, the anti-Castro Cubans, the draggers, the CIA, anybody.' In his 43 years, Morales had been involved with all of them, and more, in and out of the nether world of Mi. amt. Miami is a place where simple where cocaine can make peop ~g suddenly rich, occult and dead. It is ative in Miami during the agency's where dissidents from a dozen Latin Cuban destabilization campaign in and Caribbean countries plot revo- the early 1960s. Morales' friends say lutions. It is a city so used to in- they did not know why Morales had trigue that a magazine for Latin vis- it in for him. But Morales also was a itors lists the CIA local phone num~ CIA operative in the anti-Cuban her along with those of hotels and campaign dsoof former rit Edwin P. friend all-night pharmacies. CIA So from Morales' family and As a young CIA officer,