Did Fidel Kill Kennedy?

[Gerry Hemming]

I have a bit of a problem with those people who think the Kennedys were planning another invasion: At the same time I have no doubt they were hoping to provoke an uprising that would create the conditions for an invasion under Mongoose, or the subsequent covert program - and particularly the Artime autonomous group which operating from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. [Despite what some accounts say was code-named Second Naval Guerrilla, both Rafael Quintero, Artime's deputy, and Sam Halpern, executive assistant to Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the Cuba task force at the time, both told me they never heard of.]

As I recall, Gus Russo's book, Live by The Sword, also claims - as I recall without going back to look for it - that Kennedy was planning another invasion, coming to that conclusion by selectively citing from a declassified document by Robert McNamara.

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Don;

I still have equipment which I helped unload and later inventory, from the barge tugged up from Monkey Point. [1966-67]

Said warehouse-full of parachutes [mostly cargo], swimmer rebreather, etc. gear, diesel generators, parachute rigger sewing machines, etc. [some of which we used for the Ivan Tor/Paramount movie "Daring Game" -- all came from a Nick Zapetis/Tom McCrory surplus sale OK'd by Jake Esterline.

Not only does some of the equipment have "2nd Naval Guerrilla" stenciled upon same -- even such items as small "snap-links" [caribienners] has "2nd Naval Guerrilla" hand-painted on them.

I loaned a "2nd Naval Guerrilla" U.S. Army M-208B Cipher machine [miniature "Enigma"] to the Dallas JFK museum. Check with Gary Shaw, or Bob Cutler -- they have failed to return it to me. The NSA and OSS musuems [and D.C. "Spy Museum"] pay big bucks for these very rare code devices. Those, and the "Jefferson Cylinders" that 2nd N/Guerrilla trained with before the "One-Time Pads" course of instruction.

Call Santiago Alvarez [or his son] in Miami -- and ask him what was then painted inside the cockpit of their "Alisan" mother-boat !!

Looks like they didn't know, or wanted to blow you off, old bean !!

Gerry

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[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.

[Michael Hogan]

I buy the theory that Hoffa was killed because he was trying to regain the Teamsters presidency and was threatening to expose or end Mob access to the Teamsters pension fund.

That's the explanation given by the late Frank Sheeran in the book "I Heard You Paint Houses," written by Charles Brandt based on taped interviews with Sheeran. Sheeran was a hit man for both Hoffa and the Mafia. (The book title refers to what Hoffa said to him when they first met. Painting a house meant killing somebody, with blood splattering everything.) The Mob gave Sheeran a choice of killing Hoffa or of being killed himself. (I imagine Jack Ruby was given the same kind of option with regard to LHO.)

It's a darkly entertaining book, as when a Philadelphia don gave Sheeran a murder assignment by saying, "You gotta do what you gotta do." Sheeran says, "You didn't have to go down the street and enroll in some courses at the University of Pennsylvania to know what he meant."

From The Idaho Valley Express

Listening to the Mob with Charles Brandt

By Tony Evans

February 15, 2011

Excerpt:

Organized crime has long been a staple of the Hollywood film industry. Ketchum resident and author Charles Brandt, 68, knows more than

most about the inner workings of the Mafia.

One of his four books, "I Heard You Paint Houses," will be made into a movie in 2012, featuring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel.

The book, published in 2004, was a New York Times nonfiction bestseller. To "paint a house" is a euphemism for murder—the paint is the blood that spatters

on the walls.

The book is a true-crime biography of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, a Teamsters official and Mafia associate who on orders from his powerful godfather,

Russell Bufalino, killed his friend and mentor Jimmy Hoffa, and 25 to 30 others, including Crazy Joey Gallo.

While interviewing Sheeran for the book, Brandt said, he uncovered key information implicating the Mafia in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"I am absolutely 100 percent convinced that the Mafia killed JFK," Brandt said in an interview. "I theorize that Lee Harvey Oswald was expecting to

meet up with cops who would help him get out of the country."

Brandt says Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby, was deeply involved with the Mafia. During interviews in 1999, Sheeran told Brandt that rifles he transported

to an airport in 1963 were used in the JFK assassination.

The film is in production at Paramount Studios under the working title "The Irishman," and will be directed by Martin Scorsese, based on a screenplay

by Oscar winner Steve Zaillian.

Full story: http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005135373