Did the Soviets/Castro organize the assassination?

[Thomas H. Purvis]

I have also just read Michael R. Beschloss’s “Kennedy v. Khrushchev: The Crisis Years: 1960-1963”. Beschloss is considered to be the most well-informed historians today writing about JFK’s foreign policy. In the final section of the book Beschloss considers the possibility of JFK being killed as a result of a conspiracy. Understandably he dismisses the idea that JFK was killed by the KGB or Castro. Beschloss points out that JFK’s death was a terrible political blow to both Khrushchev and Castro.

Beschloss argues that if it was a communist plot it would have originated in China. After all, the Chinese government, like right-wingers in America, were very concerned about the successful negotiations that were taking place between the United States and the Soviet Union. Beschloss points out that the only places where school children applauded when told of the JFK assassination, was in China and Dallas. He quotes Henry Brandon of the Sunday Times who visited the Soviet Union a month after the assassination and was surprised to find the mourning was “almost more intense in Moscow than in Washington”. Time and time again he was asked, “do you think Johnson organized the assassination?”

Beschloss clams that documents released since the fall of communism conforms that senior figures in the Soviet Union believed that JFK had been “murdered by the CIA, which could not forgive him for the Bay of Pigs and the Soviet détente”. These sources also show that the Soviets considered LBJ to be “reactionary” and “inflexible” and a more doctrinaire Cold War warrior than JFK. It of course made no sense for them to kill JFK.

The Soviet Union has, on more than one occassion, mistaken the "free enterprise" system of the money handlers of the US, with the CIA.

But, so have many American citizens.

Difference being, free enterprise has unlimited funds and frequently had little "oversight" of their actiivities.

[John Simkin]

Gus Russo does not claim that Castro did it but he does not exclude the possibility and his book is replete with evidence re Castro's motive and possible DGI agents in Dealey Plaza. I cannot post his entire book here. I can only encourage members to read it. But many, like Dawn, exclude the possibility that Castro did it and refuse to read Russo's book.

Similar situation exists with Trento's book.

If people want to seriously evaluate the evidence of Cuban involvement, they should read Russo's book, Trento's book and Kurtz's book. I do not claim to have substantial evidence other than those sources. well, let me amend that. I also believe Trento's book because I think Angleton was correct about many things, including the Nosenko affair. Further evidence would be that Richard Nagell claimed that the GRU had pre-knowledge of the upcoming assassination.

Everyone ought to know that I try to read just about everything I can about the assassination and I do not exclude any scenario provided there is some evidence to suggest it. Anyone who is sincere in wanting to solve the assassination ought to be willing to follow the evidence where it leads, and that would then include reading Russo, Trento and Kurtz. It is fine if they read the books with an open mind and then decide to reject them. But I don't think anyone can state he or she is willing to follow the evidence and then refuse to read those books.

Consider the evidence of DGI agents in Dealey Plaza. Robert Charles-Dunne writes off all such evidence solely because it is contained in CIA reports. One report came from the aunt of one of the agents, so Robert then argued the aunt was not a good source. I guess Robert would only believe it if the report included statements by both of the Cuban's parents and each of his siblings, and then only after each family member had undergone a polygraph examination.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK.

It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them.

This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book:

The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m.

These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder."

Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266)

For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign.

Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

[Gerald McKnight]

I just reviewed a MS by Michael Kurtz that will be coming out this year under the University of Kansas Press label. His Introduction speaks to your question better than I have above and I recommend you keep your eye peeled for it.

By the way, I assume that this is the same Michael Kurtz who wrote "The Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective"? If so, does he still think it is possible that the Soviets were involved in the assassination?

The Kurtz I mention is the one you suspected. But from his ms that I reviewed for the Kansas Press he is now of the view that JFK was a victim of CIA or rogue US elements. However, while he does not believe Oswald shot JFK, he does deem it probable that Oswald shot Tippit. Go figure.

[Thomas Graves]

On 1/11/2005 at 2:40 AM, John Simkin said:

I thought that it might be a good idea to look at the evidence that suggests that the assassination of JFK was organized by the governments of the Soviet Union or/and Cuba. I think the idea makes no political sense at all but I know some members of the forum do believe this theory.

The history of this theory is an interesting one. The first person to put this theory forward was John Martino, an electronics expert, who was employed by Santos Trafficante. He also worked as a CIA agent and took part in its Black Operations.

In an article published in January, 1964, Martino argued that in 1963 Castro discovered an American plot to overthrow his government. He retaliated by employing Oswald to kill JFK.

Shortly before his death in 1975 Martino confessed to a Miami Newsday reporter, John Cummings, that he had been guilty of spreading false stories implicating Oswald and the Soviets in the assassination. In fact, he had himself been part of the conspiracy to kill JFK. He claimed that two of the gunmen were Cuban exiles. It is believed the two men were Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez. Cummings added: "He told me he'd been part of the assassination of Kennedy. He wasn't in Dallas pulling a trigger, but he was involved. He implied that his role was delivering money, facilitating things.... He asked me not to write it while he was alive." Martino made a similar confession to his wife, son and business partner.

The next person to spread this story was Billy James Hargis, the founder of Christian Crusade ("a Christian weapon against Communism and its godless allies"). In 1964 he wrote a book called The Far Left. In it he argued:

What are the lies that are confronting the American people today as a result of this internal Communist conspiracy, and in connection with this murder of the President of the United States?

The first lie is that there is no conspiracy, that the Communist conspiracy does not exist, and there are not thousands upon thousands of trained Communist agents in this country today, some of them trained, as Lee Harvey Oswald obviously was, to be expert killers. The murder of the President of the United States was one of the most skillful acts of killing imaginable and could have been accomplished only by great training, and now the facts show that Oswald received such training inside the Soviet Union, while he lived there as a citizen.

It is a lie hatched in hell that the so-called “right-wing extremists” are guilty of the murder of the President of the United States. That lie was put out as official Communist Party propaganda in the first flash of Tass News Agency in Moscow as reported in this country within minutes after the President was killed. Tass, the Russian Communist News Agency, said it was believed that “right-wing extremists” were responsible for the murder of the President, and specifically branded General Edwin A. Walker as being one of those guilty.

Hargis was known as a right-wing fanatic and his views on the assassination were not taken seriously (except for Kenneth Rahn’s Academic (sic) JFK Assassination Site).

Despite the efforts of James Jesus Angleton very few researchers were unwilling to put forward the theory that the Soviets were behind the assassination. Understandably, most researchers were more likely to think that it was the CIA or FBI that planned the assassination than the KGB.

The next book that argued that the KGB was behind the assassination came in 1975. The book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy had been written by the English author, Michael Eddowes. The fact that Eddowes had written such a book surprised researchers in the UK. Eddowes, a former lawyer, had gained fame in 1955 by publishing a book called The Man on Your Conscience. The book was an investigation into the murder trial and execution of Timothy Evans. The book caused renewed interest in the case and eventually Evans received a posthumous pardon by the Queen. This case played an important role in the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Britain.

Eddowes was therefore had a good reputation as an investigative reporter. However, he appeared to lose interest in this profession after the publication of The Man on Your Conscience. In fact, by 1975, he was mainly known for his right-wing extremist political views.

In Khrushchev Killed Kennedy Eddowes argued that Kennedy was killed by a Soviet agent impersonating Oswald. Eddowes also claimed that LBJ was aware of this and had covered-up the role of the KGB in the killing of Kennedy in order to prevent a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. With the release of the LBJ tapes we now know this is what he was saying at the time. Had Eddowes been tipped off by the FBI/CIA about this?

Two events helped to undermine Eddowes and as a result his book is rarely quoted by the “Soviets did it” theorists. To test his theory, Eddowes brought a suit in Texas to exhume Oswald's body. This was originally refused but after gaining the support of Lee Harvey Oswald's family, the exhumation took place on 4th October, 1981. The body was taken to the Baylor Medical Center. Identification was made primarily using dental records. At a news conference held later the following statement was issued: “The findings of the team are as follows: We independently and as a team have concluded beyond any doubt, and I mean beyond any doubt, that the individual buried under the name of Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery is in fact Lee Harvey Oswald.”

The other event was the discovery that the writing and publication of Khrushchev Killed Kennedy had been financed by the Texas oil billionaire, Haroldson L. Hunt. This was of course the man claimed by Thomas Buchanan (Who Killed Kennedy? 1964) to have paid for the JFK assassination.

The next person to argue that it was the KGB was Edward Jay Epstein. In 1978 he published Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald. In the book he claims that Oswald killed JFK and that it was working on behalf of the KGB. Much of the book is based on interviews with James Jesus Angleton and Yuri Nosenko. This book did little for Epstein’s reputation as a serious researcher and many now believe he was in the pay of the CIA.

In 1982 Michael Kurtz published The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective. It is a good book and mainly concentrates on looking at the evidence for a conspiracy. In the book he speculates about different groups being involved in the assassination. This includes the possibility that the assassination was ordered by Fidel Castro.

In recent years few researchers have claimed that the Soviets were behind the assassination. The release of secret files under the Freedom of Information Act has also undermined this theory. It is now clear that JFK was involved in secret negotiations with Castro and Khrushchev about bringing the Cold War to an end. The idea that they should be at the same time being plotting to have JFK assassinated so that they could have LBJ as president is indeed ridiculous.

I just now stumbled upon this 12 year-old thread.  It's way overdue for a bump (in my arrogant, fascist, National Security State-oriented opinion).

Edited January 18, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

On 1/11/2005 at 2:40 AM, John Simkin said:

 

[...]

In recent years few researchers have claimed that the Soviets were behind the assassination. The release of secret files under the Freedom of Information Act has also undermined this theory. It is now clear that JFK was involved in secret negotiations with Castro and Khrushchev about bringing the Cold War to an end. The idea that they should be at the same time plotting to have JFK assassinated so that they could have LBJ as president is indeed ridiculous.

 

 

Dear John,

In view of the fact that Vladimir Putin, the mobbed-up "former" KGB officer who was so enamored of said agency that he first tried to join it when he was sixteen (and which agency has recently been reconstituted, btw), recently interfered in our elections here in "The Colonies" so that the most anti-E.U. / anti-NATO presidential candidate -- a domestically divisive, "useful idiot" -- could become our President, do you honestly believe the Cold War ever ended as far as the Russian are concerned?

Just sayin'

--  Tommy

Edited May 4, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

On 5/2/2017 at 3:16 PM, Thomas Graves said:

 

Dear John,

In view of the fact that Vladimir Putin, the mobbed-up "former" KGB officer who was so enamored of said agency that he first tried to join it when he was sixteen (and which agency has recently been reconstituted, btw), recently interfered in our elections here in "The Colonies" so that the most anti-E.U. / anti-NATO presidential candidate -- a domestically divisive, "useful idiot" -- could become our President, do you honestly believe the Cold War ever ended as far as the Russian are concerned?

Just sayin'

--  Tommy

edited for grammar and a human-interest tidbit 

[Thomas Graves]

On 1/11/2005 at 2:40 AM, John Simkin said:

I thought that it might be a good idea to look at the evidence that suggests that the assassination of JFK was organized by the governments of the Soviet Union or/and Cuba. I think the idea makes no political sense at all but I know some members of the forum do believe this theory.

The history of this theory is an interesting one. The first person to put this theory forward was John Martino, an electronics expert, who was employed by Santos Trafficante. He also worked as a CIA agent and took part in its Black Operations.

In an article published in January, 1964, Martino argued that in 1963 Castro discovered an American plot to overthrow his government. He retaliated by employing Oswald to kill JFK.

Shortly before his death in 1975 Martino confessed to a Miami Newsday reporter, John Cummings, that he had been guilty of spreading false stories implicating Oswald and the Soviets in the assassination. In fact, he had himself been part of the conspiracy to kill JFK. He claimed that two of the gunmen were Cuban exiles. It is believed the two men were Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez. Cummings added: "He told me he'd been part of the assassination of Kennedy. He wasn't in Dallas pulling a trigger, but he was involved. He implied that his role was delivering money, facilitating things.... He asked me not to write it while he was alive." Martino made a similar confession to his wife, son and business partner.

The next person to spread this story was Billy James Hargis, the founder of Christian Crusade ("a Christian weapon against Communism and its godless allies"). In 1964 he wrote a book called The Far Left. In it he argued:

What are the lies that are confronting the American people today as a result of this internal Communist conspiracy, and in connection with this murder of the President of the United States?

The first lie is that there is no conspiracy, that the Communist conspiracy does not exist, and there are not thousands upon thousands of trained Communist agents in this country today, some of them trained, as Lee Harvey Oswald obviously was, to be expert killers. The murder of the President of the United States was one of the most skillful acts of killing imaginable and could have been accomplished only by great training, and now the facts show that Oswald received such training inside the Soviet Union, while he lived there as a citizen.

It is a lie hatched in hell that the so-called “right-wing extremists” are guilty of the murder of the President of the United States. That lie was put out as official Communist Party propaganda in the first flash of Tass News Agency in Moscow as reported in this country within minutes after the President was killed. Tass, the Russian Communist News Agency, said it was believed that “right-wing extremists” were responsible for the murder of the President, and specifically branded General Edwin A. Walker as being one of those guilty.

Hargis was known as a right-wing fanatic and his views on the assassination were not taken seriously (except for Kenneth Rahn’s Academic (sic) JFK Assassination Site).

Despite the efforts of James Jesus Angleton very few researchers were unwilling to put forward the theory that the Soviets were behind the assassination. Understandably, most researchers were more likely to think that it was the CIA or FBI that planned the assassination than the KGB.

The next book that argued that the KGB was behind the assassination came in 1975. The book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy had been written by the English author, Michael Eddowes. The fact that Eddowes had written such a book surprised researchers in the UK. Eddowes, a former lawyer, had gained fame in 1955 by publishing a book called The Man on Your Conscience. The book was an investigation into the murder trial and execution of Timothy Evans. The book caused renewed interest in the case and eventually Evans received a posthumous pardon by the Queen. This case played an important role in the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Britain.

Eddowes was therefore had a good reputation as an investigative reporter. However, he appeared to lose interest in this profession after the publication of The Man on Your Conscience. In fact, by 1975, he was mainly known for his right-wing extremist political views.

In Khrushchev Killed Kennedy Eddowes argued that Kennedy was killed by a Soviet agent impersonating Oswald. Eddowes also claimed that LBJ was aware of this and had covered-up the role of the KGB in the killing of Kennedy in order to prevent a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. With the release of the LBJ tapes we now know this is what he was saying at the time. Had Eddowes been tipped off by the FBI/CIA about this?

Two events helped to undermine Eddowes and as a result his book is rarely quoted by the “Soviets did it” theorists. To test his theory, Eddowes brought a suit in Texas to exhume Oswald's body. This was originally refused but after gaining the support of Lee Harvey Oswald's family, the exhumation took place on 4th October, 1981. The body was taken to the Baylor Medical Center. Identification was made primarily using dental records. At a news conference held later the following statement was issued: “The findings of the team are as follows: We independently and as a team have concluded beyond any doubt, and I mean beyond any doubt, that the individual buried under the name of Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery is in fact Lee Harvey Oswald.”

The other event was the discovery that the writing and publication of Khrushchev Killed Kennedy had been financed by the Texas oil billionaire, Haroldson L. Hunt. This was of course the man claimed by Thomas Buchanan (Who Killed Kennedy? 1964) to have paid for the JFK assassination.

The next person to argue that it was the KGB was Edward Jay Epstein. In 1978 he published Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald. In the book he claims that Oswald killed JFK and that it was working on behalf of the KGB. Much of the book is based on interviews with James Jesus Angleton and Yuri Nosenko. This book did little for Epstein’s reputation as a serious researcher and many now believe he was in the pay of the CIA.

In 1982 Michael Kurtz published The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective. It is a good book and mainly concentrates on looking at the evidence for a conspiracy. In the book he speculates about different groups being involved in the assassination. This includes the possibility that the assassination was ordered by Fidel Castro.

In recent years few researchers have claimed that the Soviets were behind the assassination. The release of secret files under the Freedom of Information Act has also undermined this theory. It is now clear that JFK was involved in secret negotiations with Castro and Khrushchev about bringing the Cold War to an end. The idea that they should be at the same time being plotting to have JFK assassinated so that they could have LBJ as president is indeed ridiculous.

John,

Perhaps it's mentioned somewhere in this thread (which I sheepishly admit I've not read in it's entirety, quite yet) --  In 2007 Mihai Pacepa published his book "Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination." Which book is referenced several times in this fascinating, article:

http://www.scientiapress.com/kgb-kennedy#foot_text_85_2

 

--  Tommy 

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by Thomas Graves