Reading RFK's Jr. latest. No doubt he points his finger towards the CIA

[Paz Marverde]

Quote

Howard Hunt told his son that he met with the CIA’s leading anti-Castro operatives Frank Sturgis and David Morales in a CIA safe house in Miami to discuss the “big event” shortly beforehand—a plan to kill Jack.

On the day Uncle Jack was assassinated, Fidel Castro was meeting with Jean Daniel at his summer presidential palace in Varadero Beach. At one p.m. they received a phone call with news that Jack had been shot. “Es una mala noticia,” Castro said to himself. Then, turning to Daniel, “There is the end to your mission of peace. Everything is going to change.” When the news came twenty minutes later that Jack was dead, Castro called it “a catastrophe.” Then he asked Daniel: “Who is Lyndon Johnson? What authority does he have over the CIA?” Hearing that American authorities were in hot pursuit of a suspect, Castro told Daniel, “You watch and see—I know them—they will try to put the blame on us for this thing.” And he was right. According to investigators on the House Select Committee on Assassinations, immediately following Jack’s assassination, operatives in the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division promoted evidence—later proven false—suggesting that Castro had orchestrated President Kennedy’s assassination. The Senate’s Church Committee, which investigated the assassination for two years from 1975 to ’77, concluded that Cuba had nothing to do with Jack’s murder. Dan Hardway, an attorney who served as investigator for the House Committee, told me that the source of virtually every story blaming Castro was connected to the CIA’s Western Hemisphere chief and propaganda guru, David Atlee Phillips.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Except for the Hunt angle, I think this is fairly good.

Considering where he was coming from, an environmental lawyer, who spent a long time writing his book on the Skakel case, he got up to speed fairly quickly.

And he knew who to talk to, I mean Hardway is a good source.

[Ron Bulman]

Yes Paz he most definitely does point his finger at the CIA.  Refreshing candor from a inside member of the family after all these years.  Well detailed and documented.

I asked this on another thread.  RFK II mentions Joaquin Sanjenish as a head of Operation 40.  I've not read of him.  Does anyone know more about him?

[James DiEugenio]

I thought his name was Luis Sanjenis.  I mention him in Destiny Betrayed Second Edition, pp. 50-51.

I source that to the Sam Halper letter to Schlesinger and also to Larry Hancock.

 

[Larry Hancock]

Both the FBI and the CIA had difficulties with the more complex Latin names...you find different spellings and name breaks all over the place.  As I recall I used the actual CIA organization chart for my source but there are no doubt different versions - same guy though.  In the SWHT index I find him listed as Jose Sanjenis, and also Joachim Panderao San Jenis.  Among the Anglo CIA types he was called Sam Jenis. And we do know a good bit about him, probably more now than when I was writing but if you have SWHT 2010 you will find a good bit on him.

[Ron Bulman]

Thank you gentlemen.  This obviously means I have read about but forgotten him.  I'll refer back to both books for a refresher.

[Ron Bulman]

WDestiny Betrayed and Some One Would Have Talked are both seminal works in the ongoing public investigation of JFK's public execution.  

https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Betrayed-Cuba-Garrison-Case/dp/1620870568/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529809922&sr=1-1&keywords=destiny+betrayed&dpID=513xLkDI7yL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Someone-Would-Have-Talked-Assassination/dp/0977465713/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529810316&sr=1-1&keywords=someone+would+have+talked

Mr. Kennedy may have inadvertently or purposefully highlighted someone of import in JFK's assassination that has been overlooked somewhat or neglected.  Reading books like Destiny Betrayed and Someone Would Have Talked one is presented with so much important information that it can be overwhelming.  Even with flags, notes and highlights on multiple pages.

It's no wonder Jim mentioned this guy in DB and referenced Larry's work.  He bears further scrutiny.  

Edited June 25, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[Ron Ecker]

In JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass kind of points toward the CIA too: "We have no evidence as to who in the military-industrial complex may have given the order to assassinate President Kennedy. That the order was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency is obvious. The CIA's fingerprints are all over the crime and the events leading up to it" (pp. 142-143). With the Ongoing Cover-up (did someone coin that phrase?), he might have added "the events after it" too. Even the CIA kind of points toward the CIA.

 

 

[Paz Marverde]

3 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

In JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass kind of points toward the CIA too: "We have no evidence as to who in the military-industrial complex may have given the order to assassinate President Kennedy. That the order was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency is obvious. The CIA's fingerprints are all over the crime and the events leading up to it" (pp. 142-143). With the Ongoing Cover-up (did someone coin that phrase?), he might have added "the events after it" too. Even the CIA kind of points toward the CIA.

 

 

Absolutely. And RFK Jr. has declared to love that book. By the way: I love it too

[Ron Bulman]

On page 299 of SWHT Larry talks about Operation 40 being led by Joaquin Sanjenis and Felix Guiterrez.  After Joaquin many names, who is Guiterrez?

[Larry Hancock]

Wish I could help you Ron,  it is known that following the Bay of Pigs fiasco some of the group's members became part of the new Cuban Intelligence Group formed at JM/WAVE, over time some of them and others of the original group went their own ways and some became involved directly in or on the periphery of drug smuggling - that continued on through the Contra era.  Felix Guiterrez is a name that comes up with some of those activities, with drug shipments into the west coast, etc.  However I don't have anything to concretely prove its the same person, folks have speculated on that and its certainly a possibility but I've seen nothing concrete to absolutely prove its the same individual.

[James DiEugenio]

From what I know, Sanjenis first came up in that very important letter from the reporter Halper to Schlesinger.

I am really surprised he goes by that many names.  I mean even an anglicized version.

But that letter is extraordinarily interesting for its time.  Because, to my knowledge, its the first intimations of Operation Forty and how it pieced together with Schlesinger finding Manolo Ray and Varona under lock and key with an armed guard over this imprisonment at Opa Locka base in Florida.  Schlesinger had no idea this was happening with members of Hunt's CRC.  When he told Kennedy, JFK said to release them on his orders.

Halper got his information from his ties to Cuban exiles and I would be willing to wager that his main source was probably Manolo Ray. Recall, it was Kennedy who made the CIA place Ray on the CRC and then Hunt ostensibly resigned his leadership over that aspect.  Ray came to the conclusion that Operation Forty was designed to kill all of Castro's top henchmen on Cuba and then to get rid of whatever moderate and liberal elements were in the CRC.  The idea was to have Hunt's favorite, Artime, take over.  Which would have probably meant a return to fascism on the island. (Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pgs. 50-51) 

 

[Ron Bulman]

I found this old thread by Mr. Simkin on Operation 40 interesting and informative in places.  E.G., page 3, in a post by Bill Kelly "Varona fired Sanjenis after the landings...CIA said if Varona fired him, let Varona pay the bills".  Then Sanjenis goons beat up his replacements aide...  Somewhere on these pages he's called Captain Sanjenis.

 

[James DiEugenio]

I an pretty sure that part of the story is accurate about Sanjenis vs Varona.

But I am pretty sure Larry would have problems with that picture from Barry and the Boys.  As I would.

[James DiEugenio]

Let me add one more point about this.

Its pretty provable that the hardcore Cubans, those that Hunt and Phillips liked and put into the Zapata operation, like Artime and DeTorres, were the ones that show up later in CIA sponsored operations.  In fact, there is evidence that DeTorres actually worked with Mitch Werbell and was part of the US invasion of Dominican Republic under Johnson.  

So its always been rather suggestive to me that Sylvia Odio was visited by Angel and Leopoldo and either Oswald or his double.

Because Sylvia was a follower of Ray, in fact her father was friends with Ray and she recalled Ray visiting their home in Cuba.

Today, I do not think that choice of Odio and JURE was an accident.