Thomas Buchanan: Did he solve the JFK case?

[Pat Speer]

Pat, Communists cannot be trusted.

Neither, in my opinion, would I trust Richard Helms or certain other people affiliated with the CIA.

Have you read Trento's book?  Do you know it was renounced by the CIA establishment (see its review in the official CIA organ "Studies in Intelligence").

I suspect James Jesus Angleton was right about many things, including Yuri Nosenko.  Angleton was highly suspicious of Cubela, as was Shackley.  Shackley even got in a shouting match with Fitzgerald about the advisability of proceeding with Cubela.

Ironically, if the views of the CIA officials that some people in the assassination research community consider likely suspects (e.g. Angleton, Shackley and Harvey) had prevailed in the Cubela matter, John Kennedy would probably be alive today.  It was the rash decisions of Helms and Fitzgerald that, IMO, cost JFK his life. 

I don't know what would have happened in Vietnam had Kennedy not been killed, but I am convinced he would have invaded Cuba, done it right the second time, put in power people such as Manuel Artime and Harry Williams, and this would have guaranteed his re-election.  Then he would have assured that the lunar landing occured prior to the 1968 election, probably guaranteeing the election of his designated successor.

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How would JFK have stayed alive if we didn't trust Cubela? Are you subscribing to the "Castro did it" theory?

As far as the Trento book, I've read most of it at one time or another. It doesn't surprise me that the CIA would hate it. It confirms that the CIA shipped opium in Laos, for starters.

[Tim Gratz]

Castro had to do it.

Not only had Fitzgerald told his agent Cubela that Bobby Kennedy had personally endorsed his murder, but the Kennedys were planning a second invasion of Cuba to make up for the first one (botched both by the CIA and by JFK).

Had JFK lived, Castro would have been gone before the 1964 election.

Cubela had close ties to Trafficante and had been meeting in Mexico City with Valery Kostikov in the months before the assassination.

You of course remember Eladio del Valle. Do you know that shortly before his brutal murder he had warned the CIA about the relationship between Trafficante and Cubela?

At a later date (under a new thread John is starting) I will comment on this at greater length. As you may know, the only historian who has written a book about the assassination, Prof Michael Kurtz, has concluded that the most likely scenario is that Castro did it.

Did the CIA murder JFK? No. Did the CIA plot murders of foreign leaders? Yes. Was it as morally objectionable for the CIA to plot to kill Castro, Lumumba and Trujillo as it would have been for them to plot to kill Kennedy? Yes.

Can we condone Castro's assassination of Kennedy? Of course not. But with our country continually plotting his murder, was his action, which was essentially a defensive one, understandable? Yes.

Is the evidence that Castro did it overwhelming? No. Is it, however, stronger than the evidence supporting any other theory? IMO, it is.

Edited January 11, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Ian A. Kerr]

Castro had to do it.

Not only had Fitzgerald told his agent Cubela that Bobby Kennedy had personally endorsed his murder, but the Kennedys were planning a second invasion of Cuba to make up for the first one (botched both by the CIA and by JFK).

Had JFK lived, Castro would have been gone before the 1964 election.

Cubela had close ties to Trafficante and had been meeting in Mexico City with Valery Kostikov in the months before the assassination.

You of course remember Eladio del Valle.  Do you know that shortly before his brutal murder he had warned the CIA about the relationship between Trafficante and Cubela?

At a later date (under a new thread John is starting) I will comment on this at greater length.  As you may know, the only historian who has written a book about the assassination, Prof Michael Kurtz, has concluded that the most likely scenario is that Castro did it.

Did the CIA murder JFK?  No.  Did the CIA plot murders of foreign leaders?  Yes.  Was it as morally objectionable for the CIA to plot to kill Castro, Lumumba and Trujillo as it would have been for them to plot to kill Kennedy?  Yes.

Can we condone Castro's assassination of Kennedy?  Of course not.  But with our country continually plotting his murder, was his action, which was essentially a defensive one, understandable?  Yes.

Is the evidence that Castro did it overwhelming?  No.  Is it, however, stronger than the evidence supporting any other theory?  IMO, it is.

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Tim,

If you want to catch a fish, any fish, which decision re: bait is required first - the fish's or the fisherman's ?.

[Pat Speer]

Some reasons I don't buy that Castro was behind the assassination.

1. The assassination attempts on Castro did not stop with Kennedy. If LBJ or Nixon truly believed there was some sort of divine retribution, they would have made sure no assassination attempts were condoned during their reign. Instead, the CIA continued to support assassination attempts on Castro throughout their presidencies. Moreover, Castro had no reason to believe the assassination attempt on Kennedy would have any effect on U.S. policy. If you believe for one second that Castro believed the assassination attempts were inspired and run by Bobby Kennedy and that they would stop once he lost power than my friend you drank the kool-aid. The Bobby was responsible story was pushed by Drew Pearson after discussing the Rosselli/Morgan story with LBJ. He ran the story the day after Bobby came out against the war. Fill in the blank.

2. The second invasion of Cuba was most likely a pose created by the Kennedy Administration to keep the Cuban exiles pre-occupied. It is significant that Artime et al were based off U.S. soil and that everyone on U.S. soil was getting harrassed. The evidence is clear that Kennedy was simultaneously opening back-door channels to Castro. He was, in effect, running a double policy. This was so he could pressure Castro to come into our sphere of influence. It probably would have worked. Castro was never particularly fond of the U.S.S.R. That Kennedy was trying to make nice with Castro would have naturally been very upsetting to the anti-Castro Cubans and their mob supporters. There is your motive.

3. Many of the Castro ran Oswald stories that came out after the assassination were shown to be false by the Warren Commission and the HSCA. What's worse, is that a number of these stories have been shown by writers such as Larry Hancock to have originated with the DRE, an anti-Castro Cuban group ran by the CIA. One of their propaganda chiefs was Carlos Bringuier, who just so happened to have had a (widely rumored to be staged) fight with Oswald in New Orleans. The CIA officers working with the DRE include George Joannides and David Atlle Phillips. Phillips is--another coincidence?--the CIA agent who was presumed by the HSCA to have lied when he denied knowing Antonio Veciana, the anti-Castro Cuban who claimed he'd seen his CIA handler meet with Oswald. Gaeton Fonzi's The Last Investigation makes a convincing argument that Phillips was himself this handler.

4. I just don't buy that the first Bush administration, after the fall of the Soviet Union, and with the Bush family's close ties to the Cuban exile community, wouldn't have used any info they had on Castro to discredit him and/or overthrow him. The Clinton Administration, due to Clinton's near-worship of Kennedy, might have done the same. Finally, I have to believe that the current adminstration, with ith its "WMD--No WMD" lies to justify an invasion of Iraq, would not hesitate to use the Kennedy assassination against Castro, should there be any real evidence. Think about it--by boldly confronting Castro on his role in the assassination, Bush would have been able to 1) pacify the Kennedy wing of the Democratic party and destroy their ability to make him look partisan, 2) show the American people that his invasion of Iraq to remove the man "who tried to kill my daddy" was not merely a private war, but was consistent with a policy of protection applying to all presidents 3) guarantee his winning the election in Florida. Furthermore, by discrediting the Warren Commission it would have further discredited LBJ, separating Bush from his Texas predecessor, and separating Iraq from Vietnam; this would serve Bush's purposes domestically as it would help him with his agenda of further dismantling "the great society" of Johnson's dreams.

Edited January 12, 2005 by Pat Speer

[James Richards]

3. Many of the Castro ran Oswald stories that came out after the assassination were shown to be false by the Warren Commission and the HSCA. What's worse, is that a number of these stories have been shown by writers such as Larry Hancock to have originated with the DRE, an anti-Castro Cuban group ran by the CIA. One of their propaganda chiefs was Carlos Bringuier, who just so happened to have had a (widely rumored to be staged) fight with Oswald in New Orleans. (Pat Speer)

Below is one of the first DRE publications supporting the Castro did it party line.

James

[Chris Cox]

James, when was this published and where on timeline does this appear with other similar articles on LHO published around the country? Was it the first published piece (not just DRE) telling about the Oswald Russia episode and his lefty leanings? Where does it fit with, say the discovery and subsequent publishing of the backyard pix? The LIFE expose on LHO? Thanks as always.

[James Richards]

James, when was this published and where on timeline does this appear with other similar articles on LHO published around the country?  Was it the first published piece (not just DRE) telling about the Oswald Russia episode and his lefty leanings?  Where does it fit with, say the discovery and subsequent publishing of the backyard pix? The LIFE expose on LHO?  Thanks as always.

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Christy,

The piece was published on the 23rd of November, 1963. I gather that Bringuier was very keen to get this out early. I guess while everyone else was glued to their television sets that weekend, Bringuier was locked away producing copy; unless of course it was already prepared but that means he would have known what was going to happen. Nah!!

James

Edited January 11, 2005 by James Richards

[Chris Cox]

Christy,

The piece was published on the 23rd of November, 1963. I gather that Bringuier was very keen to get this out early. I guess while everyone else was glued to their television sets that weekend, Bringuier was locked away producing copy; unless of course it was already prepared but that means he would have known what was going to happen. Nah!!

James

So, are Joannide's fingerprints on this? IOWs CIA? And did this go out to other outlets that picked it up? Other papers? Was it published concurrently with the finding of the backyard pix that LIFE used in its article? I'm presuming the backyard photos were found shortly after LHO arrest. thoughts?

[James Richards]

So, are Joannide's fingerprints on this? IOWs CIA? And did this go out to other outlets that picked it up? Other papers? Was it published concurrently with the finding of the backyard pix that LIFE used in its article? I'm presuming the backyard photos were found shortly after LHO arrest. thoughts? (Christy Cox)

Christy,

I can only assume that Joaniddes was all over this but have nothing to back it up. The publication the article was printed in was the Trinchera which was the official publication of the Cuban Student Directorate. I have the front page somewhere but will have to hunt it down.

I don't know if it was published anywhere else but I doubt it, especially in anything mainstream as they had jumped all over the lone nut angle very quickly.

As far as the backyard photos go, my understanding is that on the afternoon of the 23rd, DPD found two images at the Paine's residence. One ended up with the Warren Commission, the other vanished.

Others came from Roscoe White's wife in about 1976 and from George DeMohrenschildt's possessions in about 1977. If I have that wrong then I'm sure a forum member will correct me.

James

Edited January 12, 2005 by James Richards

[Tim Gratz]

To Pat Speer:

Pat, I will reply to your arguments soon but I want to compliment you that the arguments are well-organized, lucid and articulate. Good job!

Edited January 12, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Chris Cox]

Let me see if I have this right

Seth Kantor says he got a call from Hendrix giving rundown on LHO (22nd?) then the B. Y. Photos officially picked up on 23rd, from this batch (I assume) was a photo LIFE scooped up either after or along with Z-film and later published. (when ? anybody?) I'll also assume Joannides was behind the DRE advertisement (on 23rd) as he was CIA liason to DRE. So that makes three journalists (Kantor, Hendrix and Billings) and one operations officer (Joannides) who are onto the LHO"communist" story PDQ. Joannides was heading off something? Have to ponder this a bit.

Trying to think what happened next, oh a bunch of stuff -- then LIFE representative and liason to DRE get close to Blakey's HSCA, but that's another chapter (wink)

Thanks James for your input, I know this is pretty elemental stuff, I need a review in this area and to read Larry's book.

[George Bollschweiler]

I’ve just finished Thomas Buchanan's book and it indeed was very interesting . It really takes you back in time concerning the political climate and views in the States.

IMO it has a couple of remarkable points. First the chance of Oswald's behaviour from being very calm at the TSBD to his wild and defending struggle at the Texas theatre where he finally was captured. Buchanan states, Oswald was being followed after he did leave the TSBD and this could explain why he left the bus and took a cab that was ordered to stop a few blocks away from his rooming house. So far it has always been said that he left the bus due to the traffic jam. It also explains why he did pick up a gun at home because he was already escaping and maybe aware that he only has been abused in the plot and that his life was in danger. The only motivation he had to go to his room was to pick up his gun.

Second his description of the actions taken by Police Chief Jesse Curry who said that he knew immediately that the shots came from the TSBD and gave order to block all exits even he (Curry) was ahead of the motorcade. Followed by the order

that "someone“ gave at 12:36 to look out for Oswald although he was seen by Truly just moments ago and the fact that all empolyees, after what just had happened, where right there ready to be counted.

The most important part of the book IMO is the fact that it points directly to Texas and Dallas. Compared to many researchers who are drawing bigger and bigger circles and try to involve so many diffrent groups or profiteers, Buchanan limits it to people from and around Dallas (all evidents and facts were controlled there) and gives a possible and logical motive. The fact that the case is still unsolved is rather based on its limited persons involved than in many diffrent goups or organisations.

[Wade Rhodes]

I’ve just finished Thomas Buchanan's book and it indeed was very interesting . It really takes you back in time concerning the political climate and views in the States.

IMO it has a couple of remarkable points. First the chance of Oswald's behaviour from being very calm at the TSBD to his wild and defending struggle at the Texas theatre where he finally was captured. Buchanan states, Oswald was being followed after he did leave the TSBD and this could explain why he left the bus and took a cab that was ordered to stop a few blocks away from his rooming house. So far it has always been said that he left the bus due to the traffic jam. It also explains why he did pick up a gun at home because he was already escaping and maybe aware that he only has been abused in the plot and that his life was in danger. The only motivation he had to go to his room was to pick up his gun.

Second his description of the actions taken by  Police Chief Jesse Curry who said that he knew immediately that the shots came from the TSBD and gave order to block all exits even he (Curry) was ahead of the motorcade. Followed by the order

that "someone“ gave at 12:36 to look out for Oswald although he was seen by Truly just moments ago and the fact that all empolyees, after what just had happened, where right there ready to be counted.

The most important part of the book IMO is the fact that it points directly to Texas and Dallas. Compared to many researchers who are drawing bigger and bigger circles and try to involve so many diffrent groups or profiteers, Buchanan limits it to people from and around Dallas (all evidents and facts were controlled there)  and gives a possible and logical motive. The fact that the case is still unsolved is rather based on its limited persons involved than in many diffrent goups or organisations.

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[Shanet Clark]

Some would extend the conspiracy to the Cabell brothers and not much

farther, a team of dirty cops from the Carousel and the local power structure.

The scenario you encapsulate is pretty logical.

Someone is following you, you get of the bus, try a little evasion and get your piece.

Certainly the 12:36 order to look for Oswald is similar to the

slick press releases that were printed from Maine to New Zealand that day....

OSWALD served up fast, hot and tasty....

Edited February 1, 2005 by Shanet Clark

[John Simkin]

I thought members of the Forum might be interested in this passage from Thomas G. Buchanan's book, Who Killed Kennedy? It should be noted that it was published in May 1964. His account of Jean Daniel's meetings were confirmed by documents released in 2003.

Tim Gratz will want me to point out that in 1948 Buchanan was fired from the Washington Star because he was a member of the American Communist Party. He was blacklisted and had to find work in Europe. Part of the book originally appeared in L'Express in March, 1964.

Some of them (right-wing extremists) had openly rejoiced at the elimination of a President they hated-as, for instance, in the speech of Richard Ely, president of the Memphis Citizens Council, in which he told the Nashville, Tennessee White Citizens Council, "Kennedy died a tyrant's death. He encouraged integration, which has the support of communism. He was a tyrant." Men like Ely soon found out, however, that the public indignation was so great that such opinions could not be imprudently disseminated. But as soon as it was learned that an alleged pro-Communist had been arrested, the extreme rightwing groups broke their first, embarrassed silence. Armed with the official thesis that the crime had been committed by a man who had not only lived in Russia but was now a Castro propagandist, these groups took advantage of the opportunity to press for execution of a project they had always advocated: To retaliate by an immediate invasion of Cuba. Such an operation, though to Europeans it may seem fantastic, actually was accorded serious consideration by some members of the Congress.

The official charges against Oswald were, in a surprisingly short time, extremely detailed. Never in the history of crime has such an intricate, premeditated murder been so swiftly settled - an accomplishment made even more remarkable by two facts: First, that Oswald said that he had no connection with the crime; and second, no one else had seen him do it.

Oswald had denied his guilt, but he did not deny his Communist affiliations and, since technically the police appeared to have an "airtight" case against him, nothing now remained except to analyse his motive.

Oswald was, it seemed, an ex-Marine who, having asked for his release from military duty, had a short time later gone to the U.S.S.R., denounced his country and requested citizenship in the Soviet Union. He had lived there and was married to a Russian woman, but after two years informed Senator Tower of Texas that he wanted to come home. He said that he was disillusioned with the Communists, but the police asserted that on his arrival in the U.S.A. he had become involved in new pro-Communist activities. He was, by his own statement, chairman of a local chapter of Fair Play for Cuba, the pro-Castro group in the United States, and he had been arrested in a riot which resulted from the distribution of their leaflets. Many books, said to have been pro-Marxist and proRussian, were discovered in his home. Still more incriminating was a photograph reported to have been discovered, which showed Oswald with the murder weapon and a copy of The Worker, the official weekly Communist newspaper published in New York.

Clearly, then, it was the thesis of the Dallas lawenforcement agencies that Oswald had committed a premeditated murder to advance the Communist world revolution. He was said to be a Soviet-trained expert at political assassination, who intended to escape to Cuba or to Russia.

If the suspect in this case had lived, the prosecutor would have had to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that a Russian-trained, pro-Castro and pro-Communist assassin felt the death of Kennedy would benefit the Soviet Union and the Cuban revolution.

Could a prosecutor prove it?

Nowhere but in the United States could such a charge be made without provoking general derision. The most anti Communist of Europeans realize the death of Kennedy was more sincerely mourned in Moscow than in any other foreign capital, if only for the fact that leaders of the Soviet Union staked their whole political careers upon the chance of a ditente with the United States. The Russians had, in their debate with the Chinese, maintained there were two factions in the West: Enlightened capitalist leaders, who appreciated that in an atomic war there were no victors, and the anti-Communist fanatics who believed the nation that struck first could win the war. The chance of peace depended, therefore, on continuance of Khrushchev-Kennedy negotiations, which began so fruitfully with the agreement to curtail the testing of atomic weapons. Khrushchev had withdrawn in anger from the conference in Paris after the U-2 plane incident, proclaiming that there was no use in trying to negotiate with Eisenhower, since his word could not be trusted. He would wait, he said, for the election of the President's successor. After the last Cuban crisis, each of the two leaders, knowing the enormous burden of responsibility the other carried, knowing also that if either had desired a war the conflict could not then have been avoided, grudgingly respected one another and thereafter carefully refrained from any action that would strengthen the domestic opposition of a trusted adversary. Any plot by leaders of the Kremlin to dispatch a trained assassin to shoot down the only President since Roosevelt they respected, and expose the delicate negotiations which were just beginning to the veto of a man whose background bears a certain ominous resemblance, in their eyes, to that of Harry Truman, is no less fantastic than to think that the American Central Intelligence Agency would scheme to murder Khrushchev and replace him with another Stalin.

Neither did the Cubans have the slightest reason to want Lyndon Johnson in the White House. A short time before the President's assassination, Fidel Castro had, in fact, declared that Kennedy had "come to understand many things over the past few months." The New York Times quotes him as stating, "I'm convinced that anyone else would be worse." He even added that Kennedy "still has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas." In this belief he had, for several weeks before the President was murdered, been engaged in interviews with the French journalist Jean Daniel (who was at that time foreign editor of l'Express), which were intended both by Kennedy and by Castro as an effort, through non-diplomatic channels, to explore the possibility of normalizing their relations. Daniel had first interviewed the President of the United States on October 24th: he had then gone directly to Havana, and had interviewed the Cuban leader there on several occasions; he had promised to go back to Kennedy and to deliver Castro's confidential message before publishing his interviews. The Cuban leader's interest in such negotiations may be indicated by the fact that, in one interview, he talked to Daniel from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Even Castro's most bitter adversaries scarcely can impute to him a reasonable motive to have asked the President, through Daniel, questions vital to the future of the Cuban nation and then ordered him assassinated without waiting for his answer. An affirmative response by Kennedy to Castro's trial balloon would have prepared the way for an eventual top-level meeting with the U.S. President - a meeting much less likely now, with Lyndon Johnson in the White House - one which might have stabilized the Castro Government, enabling it to channel funds and labour wasted now on national defence to economic projects desperately needed by the Cuban people. It was not the moment Cuba would have chosen to kill Kennedy. If such an act had been considered, it would have occurred during the period when the United States was sponsoring the Bay of Pigs invasion, or in 1962, when the whole world seemed on the brink of war and Cuba faced direct U.S. invasion.