Did Fidel Kill Kennedy?

[Tim Gratz]

To Robert Charles-Dunne:

First, let me complement you on your writing which is as always, articulate and logical (but wrong). I enjoy a good debate and in fact look forward to reading what you have to say. I am not "wedded" to my scenario and am willing to listen to evidence to the contrary. Let me preface these remarks with the following comments. As I am sure you know, there are three evidentiary standards in a court of law: (a) "beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in all criminal cases; ( the weight of the evidence (a 51% standard, if you will), applicable in most civil cases; and © "clear and convincing evidence", an intermediate standard between the first two, applicable in some civil cases.

I certainly do not believe a case can be made that Castro did it "beyond a reasonable doubt", at least based on the evidence in the public record. The case against Castro may not even rise to the standard of "clear and convincing evidence". But I believe the facts and circumstances are such that would convince a reasonable person that Castro probably did it. I also think that the evidence supporting a "Castro did it" scenario is stronger than the evidence pointing to any other person or group of people.

I await any evidence that the CIA killed Kennedy, other than one drunken statement by David Morales. You and other readers ought to know by now that I am not an apologist for the CIA's activities in the early 1960s. As I said before, I believe it was as wrong and immoral for the CIA to plot to kill Castro, Lumumba and Trujillo as it would have been for it to plot the assassination of JFK. Moreover, I believe that the it was the CIA's continued plots against Castro that prompted Castro to take the action that I think he did. He could not continue to dodge the CIA's bullets and escape its poisons forever, no matter how effective his intelligence service and how good his luck. Sooner or later, the CIA was bound to succeed.

I agree with you that there is probably room for some debate whether the Kennedys were aware of the CIA plots against Castro. As you know, Laurence Houston and Sheffield Edwards briefed RFK about the Mafia plots on May 7, 1962, but they told him those plots had ceasedeven though there was an ongoing Rosselli plot. We also know that in one meeting Robert Strange McNamara openly talked about killing Castro. And reportedly JFK inserted language in his November 18, 1963 Miami speech that was to be a signal to Cubela. But of course it makes no difference in my analysis whether JFK or RFK had approved of the Cubela operation. For Desmond Fitzgerald comvinced Cubela that Bobby has sent him and that Bobby had approved of Cubela's plan to kill Fidel.

I agree with you that anti-Castro Cubans may have also made threats against JFK's life, as did Trafficante and Marcello. Any person who had made a threat against JFK ought to be considered a suspect.

But my original point was that although you argued that I had offered NO evidence against Castro, his September 7 threat against Kennedy's life is clearly evidence against him. Is it conclusive evidence? Of course not. A person can make an idlle threat. It is even possible, of course, that Castro made the threat intending to carry it out but someone beat him to it. But Castro's threat was: (a) the closest made to the actual JFK murder; ( made the very same day Cubela approached the CIA in Brazil; and © linked to a specific event: the continuation of U.S. plots to kill him. Couple this with Cubela's insistence on meeting with Robert Kennedy and most people would conclude that Cubela was probably a "dangle" and Castro wanted proof that the Kennedys approved the Cubela plot to kill him before Castro would authorize retaliation against JFK..

You wrote: "In the absence of any other compelling evidence against a defendant, the fact that he was one of a thousand people making a threat is meaningless." As we will discuss below, there is other evidence suggesting Cuban involvement in the assassination--evidence that could even be considered "compelling". But as I explained above, what distinguishes the Castro threat is its timing coupled with its apparent connection to the Cubela gambit.

You ask: "[W]hat makes you think that your suggested rationale--Castro wishing to retain power is a more compelling motive than the motives we can ascribe to a hundred other parties, all of whom also either held a grudge against the President for past deeds, or stood to benefit by his demise?" Simple answer, Robert (if I can address you by your first name despite our differences of opinion): Castro's motive was simpler and more fundamental than retaining power. It was not the CIA's intent to kidnap him and drop him off in Russia or East Germany. We (the US) was trying to KILL him, for heaven's sake! His motive was the preservation of his LIFE, not the preservation of his political power.

Show me another person the Kennedys were trying to kill and I will admit that person would have a motive as strong as Fidel's.

I asked you for evidence exculpating Castro, such as, for instance, the "SODDI" defense ("Some Other Dude Did It") and as I read your post #35 you decline to offer any such evidence. This, I suggest, bolsters my position that Castro PROBABLY did it. As I said above, I think the evidence against Castro does demonstrate that he probably did it (in a desparate measure to save his life, which worked) so unless stronger evidence exists against another person or group I will stand by my scenario.

You do raise a good point when you write: "How can you be sure--in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary--that CIA personnel would balk at killing a head of state, just because the state was their own"--except I would replace your "in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary" with "even despite the lack of any substantial evidence". The CIA's answer would, of course, be that it only involved itself in an assassination attempt when it believed it had presidential authority therefor. (Of course, IMO, even presidential authority cannot authorize a murder--any more than Richard Nixon had the presidential authority to sanction illegal acts such as burglaries.) The problem is that when the CIA undertook assassination as a tool of foreign policy it opened itself up to just the very argument you make: if the CIA was wiiling to commit a murder outside the U.S. what would stop it from commiting a political murder within the U.S.

Conspiracy theorists (myself among them, of course) argue that there is no way LHO was enough of a good shot to make all the shots attributred to him within the time frame involved. He was not that a great marksman. Well, an analagous argument could be made with respect to the CIA. It tried, for several years, using both the mafia and organized crime, to kill Castro unsuccessfully. These guys may have had murder on their mind, but murderers they were not. How could they successfully organize the murder of the president of the United States on their very first attempt when they could not kill Castro in three years, and certainly not for lack of trying!

I repeat my request, Robert: if you want me to consider another suspect, offer some evidence other than one statement attributed to a drunken David Morales.

Will reply to your posts re Miguel and Gilberto, and the Nosenko polygraph, tomorrow. Thanks again for your comments. And one request for you. I must have missed something regarding LHO's luggage at the Mexico City airport. Can you--or someone--fill me in on that story?

Edited January 17, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

To Mr. Miller:

Bill, I assume you are familar with the Cubela story.  Kennedy met with French journalist Jean Daniel on Tuesday, November 19, 1963, and said some encouraging words about the prospects for normalizing relations with Cuba.  Daniel was scheduled to meet with Castro the next day but Castro changed the meeting to early Friday afternoon.  The change in the meeting was probably calculated by Castro, for two things were happening at the very time Castro was meeting with Daniel and Daniel was telling Castro about Kennedy's interest in negotiations.

At one 'o' clock Cuban time, it was early evening in Paris France and a member of Castro's Cabinet, Major Rolando Cubela was meeting with his CIA case officer, Nestor Sanchez.  Sanchez was delivering to Cubela a pen specially designed by the CIA with a hypodermic needle capable of injecting a deadly poison into Castro so he would be dead within days without ever knowing who had killed him.  Discussions were also under way for the CIA to deliver weapons into Cuba for Cubela to use in a coup against Castro.  Cubela had made clear to the CIA that the "elimination" of Castro was necessary for a successful coup.  Three weeks earlier, a high-ranking CIA official had met Cubela in Paris and told Cubela that he was the "personal emissary" of Robert F. Kennedy and that Robert F. Kennedy approved of Cubela's plan for Castro's murder and the subsequent coup.

There are sound reasons to believe that Cubela was an agent provocateur for Castro, and that he had reported the earlier meeting to the Maximum Leader. 

We know for a fact that Castro knew.  Why do you think he chose the specific time and place to publicly utter what you consider the September "threat?"  That should have been the end of the Cubela story, for even within CIA there was concern that the Cubela caper had been compromised.

Therefore, Castro knew that while President Kennedy was talking "peace" his brother was plotting his violent death followed by a violent coup to overthrow his regime. That may have been the reason Castro rescheduled the meeting with Daniel to coincide with a second event that also occured at the same time: the murder of John Kennedy in Dallas.

It was precisely to determine whether the CIA Cubela operation had been sanctioned by the White House that Cubela demanded to hear it from RFK.  This didn't happen.  Why not?  If RFK was so anxious to have Castro whacked, why didn't RFK comply with that demand, and thus set in motion the single best chance for killing Castro? 

Clearly, CIA was not pursuing a Kennedy agenda, but a CIA agenda without the Kennedys' knowledge.  Why else would William Harvey have excluded his own boss, John McCone, from the circle of those who knew of the plots, if not to preclude the Kennedys learning of CIA's treachery?

Instead, we have Des Fitzgerald - who had already been warned by CIA colleagues that the Cubela op was compromised - pretending to be an emissary of RFK's, and masquerading as a US Senator.  To do so was a condescending insult, for no matter how little one might think of Castro's intelligence operation, it's likely that they knew who Fitzgerald really was.  And even if they didn't, they certainly knew who each and every US Senator was, and that Fitzgerald wasn't one.  So, what were the Cubans to make of this bogus US Senator and his bogus assertions that he represented the Kennedys?

Historians debate whether the Kennedys were aware of the Cubela operation. 

With good reason.  Despite CIA's latter-day insistence that the Kennedys pressured the Agency to achieve Castro's demise, while the plotting was actually taking place, those details were kept from the man who ran CIA, because he was a Kennedy appointee who couldn't be trusted to keep this from his boss in the Oval Office.  Ask yourself: if the Kennedys really were pressuring CIA to kill Castro, wouldn't CIA personnel have gladly reported its progress to McCone, so that McCone could advise the Kennedys and thus placate them, to ease this puported White House "pressure?"  Instead, CIA staff conducted a treacherous end run around both McCone and the Kennedys.  How much more clear could it be whose agenda was really being served?

If they were witting of what the CIA was doing, the talk of peace was as cynical as the Japanese whose peace negotiators were meeting in Washington as the Japanese military prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor.  You do not negotiate in good faith with someone whose murder your assistants are planning, obviously.  (Any Forum member who thinks to the contrary, please advise, for I would never want to enter any business negotiations with you.

But even if the Kennedys were not aware of the Cubela operation, Castro had every reason to believe they were, due to the representations made to Cubela by Fitzgerald. 

You seem to make the same false assumption that Fitzgerald did, that the Cubans were too stupid to know who he was and who he really represented.  Again, if all that was necessary to activate the Cubela plot was a personal go-ahead from RFK, why didn't he show up and give it to Cubela himself? 

So regardless whether the Cubela operation was Kennedy-sanctioned or not, on November 22, 1963, Castro thought that Robert Kennedy had approved a plot to kill him and overthrow his regime. 

That's your assumption, and it's unsustainable by the available evidence.  Castro's man Cubela was specific in his dealings with CIA, insisting that he would do nothing without a personal authorization from a Kennedy.

He also knew that even while he was meeting with Jean Daniel, the CIA was scheduled to deliver to his associate Cubela an instrument to violently kill him, believing that Cubela would be Castro's Brutus.

Moreover, regardless of the Kennedys' knowledge, or lack thereof, of the Cubela plot, it is clear that the Kennedys were planning a second invasion of Cuba, despite the "pledge" not to invade Cuba made as part of  the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. 

Again, this is an assumption reached despite the evidence, not because of it.  Were the exile training camps not being shut down at Kennedy's orders?  Were US based pilots not being grounded at Kennedy's orders?  Did FBI, ATF and others not receive orders to neutralize Cuban exile activities on *US* soil?  If the purported "second invasion" was a Kennedy plan, why would the Kennedys have given such orders?   

Yet, despite these clear orders from the White House, which incensed the Cuban exiles, somebody continued to order and/or facilitate pinprick raids against Cuba.  CIA's own pet crew - the DRE - certainly had a shopping list of military arms and materiel, being sought for such an invasion.  Was this invasion sanctioned by the Kennedys?  Or was the planned invasion, like the Cubela assassination plots, kept secret from the White House? 

President Kennedy certainly knew that the replacement of Castro with a democrat would guarantee his re-election.  I have even read, but I would neccessarily vouch for it, that Kennedy and Khruschev had made a secret deal to replace Castro.

Castro's justifiable belief that the Kennedys continued to personally plot his murder was enough for him to conclude that the peace talk of Daniel was cynical and hypocritical, and for Castro to take his chances on Johnson.  How could Johson be worse than Kennedy, who talked peace while his brother's "personal emissary" flew to Paris to encourage his would-be assassin?

In the event, Castro's gamble succeeded.  For LBJ called off the actions against Castro within months after his taking office.

One might also hypothesize that LBJ was no more witting of the invasion plans than Kennedy had been.

There is little doubt in my mind that had Kennedy not been assassinated, Castro would have been removed prior to the 1964 election, and JFK would have been handily re-elected, with or without LBJ on the ticket.  Kennedy would have assured that the moon landing would have occured no later than October of 1968 and Kennedy's choice of his successor (which would not have been LBJ even if he had remained on the tickets and managed to avoid a criminal conviction) would have easily defeated Richard Nixon.

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[Robert Charles-Dunne]

To Robert Charles-Dunne:

First, let me complement you on your writing which is as always, articulate and logical (but wrong).  I enjoy a good debate and in fact look forward to reading what you have to say.  I am not "wedded" to my scenario and am willing to listen to evidence to the contrary.  Let me preface these remarks with the following comments.  As I am sure you know, there are three evidentiary standards in a court of law: (a) "beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in all criminal cases; (  the weight of the evidence (a 51% standard, if you will), applicable in most civil cases; and © "clear and convincing evidence", an intermediate standard between the first two, applicable in some civil cases.

I certainly do not believe a case can be made that Castro did it "beyond a reasonable doubt", at least based on the evidence in the public record.  The case against Castro may not even rise to the standard of "clear and convincing evidence".  But I believe the facts and circumstances are such that would convince a reasonable person that Castro probably did it.  I also think that the evidence supporting a "Castro did it" scenario is stronger than the evidence pointing to any other person or group of people.

If one reads only "The Gospel According To Langley," your conclusion is hardly surprising.

I await any evidence that the CIA killed Kennedy, other than one drunken statement by David Morales.  You and other readers ought to know by now that I am not an apologist for the CIA's activities in the early 1960s. 

Could have fooled me.  Any suggestions of CIA perfidy seem to get skipped over, ignored, deleted or glossed over in your responses, as though they never existed.  They are part of the historical record. 

As I said before, I believe it was as wrong and immoral for the CIA to plot to kill Castro, Lumumba and Trujillo as it would have been for it to plot the assassination of JFK. 

Yes, it was.  Yet of the three targets you mention, two were assassinated, and the third only survived despite CIA's best efforts.  Why do you think the fourth person you mentioned in the very same sentence above was so sacrosanct that CIA would have balked at killing him, too?

Moreover, I believe that the it was the CIA's continued plots against Castro that prompted Castro to take the action that I think he did.  He could not continue to dodge the CIA's bullets and escape its poisons forever, no matter how effective his intelligence service and how good his luck.  Sooner or later, the CIA was bound to succeed.

Yet it didn't, despite the fact that the plots continued for many years after you claim they were shut down.  [i'd still like a citation for your claim that Johnson de-activated those plans.  If that is so, could you explain why CIA continued to deal with Cubela well after JFK's demise?  Could you explain why "Bishop" was still instructing Veciana to plot against Castro well into the 1970s?  If Johnson issued such a cease-and-desist order, CIA paid as much heed to what he ordered as they did to what the Kennedys ordered.  We have a clear pattern of CIA conducting its own policies, despite Presidential orders, not in furtherance of them.]

I agree with you that there is probably room for some debate whether the Kennedys were aware of the CIA plots against Castro. 

Thank you.

As you know, Laurence Houston and Sheffield Edwards briefed RFK about the Mafia plots on May 7, 1962, but they told him those plots had ceasedeven though there was an ongoing Rosselli plot.  We also know that in one meeting Robert Strange McNamara openly talked about killing Castro.  And reportedly JFK inserted language in his November 18, 1963 Miami speech that was to be a signal to Cubela.  But of course it makes no difference in my analysis whether JFK or RFK had approved of the Cubela operation.  For Desmond Fitzgerald comvinced Cubela that Bobby has sent him and that Bobby had approved of Cubela's plan to kill Fidel.

As pointed out in previous posts, that's your supposition, and given the source materials on which you rely, I am not surprised by your supposition.

I agree with you that anti-Castro Cubans may have also made threats against JFK's life, as did Trafficante and Marcello.  Any person who had made a threat against JFK ought to be considered a suspect.

Thank you.  However, you still argue that Castro's "threats" take "primacy," for reasons I'm still waiting to hear from you.

But my original point was that although you argued that I had offered NO evidence against Castro, his September 7 threat against Kennedy's life is clearly evidence against him.  Is it conclusive evidence?  Of course not.  A person can make an idlle threat.  It is even possible, of course, that Castro made the threat intending to carry it out but someone beat him to it.  But Castro's threat was: (a) the closest made to the actual JFK murder;

Only if you ignore every other threat, made by those within the US.  I could itemize them for you, if you'd like, but I suspect you already know about them.  It's just that those threats indicate a domestic conspiracy, rather than a Cuban one, and as a result are anathema to your hypothesis.

( made the very same day Cubela approached the CIA in Brazil;

Which is precisely why I would ask you to reconsider whether or not it was a "threat."  The time and place chosen for Castro's statement weren't accidental.  This was his way of letting Langley know that we knew of each development in the Cubela caper, putting CIA on notice that he knew all about the plots, even if it's clear that the Kennedys didn't.

and © linked to a specific event: the continuation of U.S. plots to kill him.  Couple this with Cubela's insistence on meeting with Robert Kennedy and most people would conclude that Cubela was probably a "dangle" and Castro wanted proof that the Kennedys approved the Cubela plot to kill him

Thank you.  Castro was trying to discern whether the plots had White House authorization.

before Castro would authorize retaliation against JFK..

Again, that's your supposition.  When you are ready to provide evidence that Castro gave such authorization, and that his agents did, indeed, achieve that goal, I look forward to reading it.

You wrote: "In the absence of any other compelling evidence against a defendant, the fact that he was one of a thousand people making a threat is meaningless."  As we will discuss below, there is other evidence suggesting Cuban involvement in the assassination--evidence that could even be considered "compelling".  But as I explained above, what distinguishes the Castro threat is its timing coupled with its apparent connection to the Cubela gambit.

You ask: "[W]hat makes you think that your suggested rationale--Castro wishing to retain power is a more compelling motive than the motives we can ascribe to a hundred other parties, all of whom also either held a grudge against the President for past deeds, or stood to benefit by his demise?"  Simple answer, Robert (if I can address you by your first name despite our differences of opinion): 

Please, feel free to do so...  We may disagree on much, but if your interest in solving the case is sincere, we are not "enemies."

Castro's motive was simpler and more fundamental than retaining power.  It was not the CIA's intent to kidnap him and drop him off in Russia or East Germany.  We (the US) was trying to KILL him, for heaven's sake!  His motive was the preservation of his LIFE, not the preservation of his political power.

Show me another person the Kennedys were trying to kill and I will admit that person would have a motive as strong as Fidel's.

Please, don't get too far ahead of yourself.  In this very post, above, you generously allow that the Kennedys might not have known about plots to kill Castro.  In the sentence immediately above, you assume it a demonstrated fact that the Kennedys were trying to kill Castro.  On what basis do you conclude this? 

I asked you for evidence exculpating Castro, such as, for instance, the "SODDI" defense ("Some Other Dude Did It") and as I read your post #35 you decline to offer any such evidence. 

Since you like to employ legal jargon in your posts, I just thought I'd remind you that it's your job as self-appointed prosecutor to marshall evidence against the defendant.  It's not my job to exculpate him.  That's the way the legal system works.  Yet, when asked to do so, your wish to act as prosecutor suddenly wilts, and you seek to shift the burden of proof.  Say, I have an idea.  Why don't we just throw that witch Castro into a lake.  If he drowns, he was innocent; if he floats, he is guilty.

This, I suggest, bolsters my position that Castro PROBABLY did it.  As I said above, I think the evidence against Castro does demonstrate that he probably did it (in a desparate measure to save his life, which worked) so unless stronger evidence exists against another person or group I will stand by my scenario.

You do raise a good point when you write: "How can you be sure--in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary--that CIA personnel would balk at killing a head of state, just because the state was their own"--except I would replace your "in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary" with "even despite the lack of any substantial evidence".  The CIA's answer would, of course, be that it only involved itself in an assassination attempt when it believed it had presidential authority therefor. 

Pardon my frustration, but for the umpteenth time, if there had been such a White House authorization, CIA would not have kept its Cubela plots [and other intrigues] a secret from the Kennedy appointee who ran the CIA.  On the contrary, it would have trumpeted its progress to McCone, so that he could inform the Kennedys of what good little spooks they were, and how well they were progressing in achieving Kennedy's goals to kill Castro.  That didn't happen.  Why?

(Of course, IMO, even presidential authority cannot authorize a murder--any more than Richard Nixon had the presidential authority to sanction illegal acts such as burglaries.)  The problem is that when the CIA undertook assassination as a tool of foreign policy it opened itself up to just the very argument you make: if the CIA was wiiling to commit a murder outside the U.S. what would stop it from commiting a political murder within the U.S.

You have ably restated my question.  What I'd like from you, however, is an answer.... 

Conspiracy theorists (myself among them, of course) argue that there is no way LHO was enough of a good shot to make all the shots attributred to him within the time frame involved.  He was not that a great marksman.  Well, an analagous argument could be made with respect to the CIA.  It tried, for several years, using both the mafia and organized crime, to kill Castro unsuccessfully.  These guys may have had murder on their mind, but murderers they were not. 

Oh?  You cited three targets, two of whom were assassinated.  Yet you somehow absolve CIA of any responsibility in those.  What are you suggesting?  That CIA planned to kill three people, but had nothing to do with the deaths of the two who did die?  If so, you seem to be saying that the Agency's one failure made it incapable of ever succeeding at anything.  That's an odd defense.

How could they successfully organize the murder of the president of the United States on their very first attempt when they could not kill Castro in three years,

Three years?  Why limit it to that time frame?  The Church Committee, Hart-Schweiker and HSCA all heard evidence that stretches the time frame significantly beyond three years.  I could also ask you to enter into evidence proof supplied by the Cubans that the plans never stopped, and continue to this day, though I don't expect you would welcome that. 

In any event, all the available evidence indicates the plots continued well past JFK's own demise.  Hence, your contention that Castro succeeded in saving his own life, and retaining power, by killing Kennedy is rendered moot.  Kennedy's death was not the end of the plotting against Castro, as even the Cubela caper demonstrates.

and certainly not for lack of trying!

I repeat my request, Robert: if you want me to consider another suspect, offer some evidence other than one statement attributed to a drunken David Morales.

Will reply to your posts re Miguel and Gilberto, and the Nosenko polygraph, tomorrow.  Thanks again for your comments.  And one request for you.  I must have missed something regarding LHO's luggage at the Mexico City airport.  Can you--or someone--fill me in on that story?

I can tell you what little I've managed to glean.  In a footnote in the original edition of Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," there is a notation that after the assassination, some luggage was found at the Mexico City airport, and that it was the ostensibly the property of a man named "Lee Harvey Oswald."  This information came from a Mexico City-based CIA source. 

Had Oswald not been apprehended, and had the "delayed Cubana plane" story gone forth in Oswald's absence, this would have been used to imply Oswald was the mystery passenger for whom the Cubana flight waited on the tarmac; that Castro agent Oswald - implicated in the assassination, in his absence from Dallas - returned to Havana, having done the dastardly deed.

However, with Oswald's arrest, that became impossible.  Hence, the luggage story was made to disappear, for with his arrest, the luggage wasn't evidence of Oswald's flight to Havana, but was suddenly evidence that somebody was trying - in advance of the assassination - to implicate Oswald as a Cuban agent. 

Any ideas who might have been behind that ruse?  If you say "Castro," I'll burst a head-valve.  :-)

   

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[Dawn Meredith]

To Dawn:

What difference does it make who flew Lisa Howard to Cuba?  I don't care if it was David Ferrie or Tosh Plumlee who flew her to Havana.  I know Howard met with Castro and was trying to encourage peace talks. 

I also know what flight Desmond Fitzgerald took to Paris on October 29, 1963, when, after lunching with his daughter Frances, he met at the CIA safe house in and told Major Cubela that Robert Kennedy wanted Cubela to kill Castro for the United States.  And I can find out what flight Nestor Sanchez took to Paris, carrying in his pocket the pen that Cubela could use to kill Castro.

Which takes precedence, I wonder, talk of peace or conspiracy to commit murder together with delivery of the murder weapon to the proposed killer?  What if you were suing a client for unpaid fees, and he proposed a sit down meeting in a neutral setting to try to negotiate a settlement of the fee dispute.  Suppose you found out that your ex-client had hired a "friend" of yours to kill you, and had even delivered a deadly poison to your friend.  Would you want to meet with that ex-client?  I think not!

I'm not sure why you credit the peace talks given the Cubela operation, the poison pen delivered to Cubela and the plans for a second invasion. 

By the way, do you have an opinion why in 1968 Howard was said to despise Robert Kennedy and opposed his election to the U.S. Senate from the State of New York?

Also, I wonder your source for your assertion that Kennedy "called off the Castro hits" (you mean attempted hits, of course).  I am aware of no authority that says he did that.  On October 31, 1963, Castro's forces captured a group of CIA-trained exiles invading Cuba intending to kill him (showing the CIA was not putting all of its eggs in Cubela's basket, by the way).  When Houston and Edwards met with Robert F. Kennedy on May 7, 1962, RFK objected to the CIA's association with gangsters but he did not object to the concept of assassination.  And both General Landsdale and Robert Strange McNamara talked of the assassination of Castro.

Threre is an old adage, I'm sure you've heard it:  actions speak louder than words,  President Kennedy may have talked about peace, but the actions of our country in launching scheme after scheme to kill our bearded neighbor spoke far louder than mere words of peace.

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____________________________

Tim: I give up. We agree to totally disagree on this. To Robert Charles Dunne, thank you for your many words of wisdom in this thread. Well done!!

And Tim, re proving Castro did NOT do it in a court of law would be as easy as proving LHO acting alone did not kill jfk. I'd love that assignment, either of them.

Dawn

Dawn

[Greg Wagner]

QUOTE(Tim Gratz @ Jan 17 2005, 04:34 AM)

To Mr. Miller:

Bill, I assume you are familar with the Cubela story.  Kennedy met with French journalist Jean Daniel on Tuesday, November 19, 1963, and said some encouraging words about the prospects for normalizing relations with Cuba.  Daniel was scheduled to meet with Castro the next day but Castro changed the meeting to early Friday afternoon.  The change in the meeting was probably calculated by Castro, for two things were happening at the very time Castro was meeting with Daniel and Daniel was telling Castro about Kennedy's interest in negotiations.

At one 'o' clock Cuban time, it was early evening in Paris France and a member of Castro's Cabinet, Major Rolando Cubela was meeting with his CIA case officer, Nestor Sanchez.  Sanchez was delivering to Cubela a pen specially designed by the CIA with a hypodermic needle capable of injecting a deadly poison into Castro so he would be dead within days without ever knowing who had killed him.  Discussions were also under way for the CIA to deliver weapons into Cuba for Cubela to use in a coup against Castro.  Cubela had made clear to the CIA that the "elimination" of Castro was necessary for a successful coup.  Three weeks earlier, a high-ranking CIA official had met Cubela in Paris and told Cubela that he was the "personal emissary" of Robert F. Kennedy and that Robert F. Kennedy approved of Cubela's plan for Castro's murder and the subsequent coup.

There are sound reasons to believe that Cubela was an agent provocateur for Castro, and that he had reported the earlier meeting to the Maximum Leader. 

We know for a fact that Castro knew.  Why do you think he chose the specific time and place to publicly utter what you consider the September "threat?"  That should have been the end of the Cubela story, for even within CIA there was concern that the Cubela caper had been compromised.

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Edited January 18, 2005 by Greg Wagner

[Greg Wagner]

Castro did not "Do It"

Sadly the death of John Kennedy is an internal domestic coup, on the order of Imperial Rome.

John's material lays the political background and a post war anti-communist fervor  the containment policy of the Cold War, and McCarthyism fed an aberrant, warlike, reactionary political opposition willing to use violence in its corporate and militant goals.

The domestic coup detat involved the joint paramilitary forces of  the pentagon and the agencies, with the support of the treasury secretary and the vice president.

If you find the Warren Commission unsatisfactory, read the contemporaneous document, the 25th amendment...

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Hi Shanet-

Your assertions closely parallel my own thoughts on the assassination. I am intrigued by your mention of the 25th ammendment. Were you thinking specifically of Section 4 and the process for stripping of a U.S. President's powers in the event that "a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide...(determine that the president) is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office..."?

Perhaps those "principal officers of the executive departments" deemed JFK "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" for various reasons such as his lack of support for the wars that the CIA and Pentagon wanted to fight, his reportedly substantial consumption of medication and stimulants, and his alleged(?) affairs with Romesch (linked to East German intelligence) and Exner (linked to Giancana). Is it possible that perhaps since this provision was not in place prior to 11/22/63, and a group of "principal officers of the executive departments" deemed JFK unfit for command, and since he seemed like a good bet to win re-election in '64, other methods were employed to remove him from office? Did you have anything like that in mind when you mentioned the 25th ammendment? Or am I way the heck out here in no man's land?

Any idea what the legal definition of "a majority of principal officers of the executive departments" might be? Joint chiefs, VP, & major cabinet positions? Or perhaps the definition is purposely vague. Just wondering how much leverage that ammendment provides other members of the exec branch when it comes to a president implementing his policies.

Of course, being removed in such a manner is certainly preferable to the public execution method that was it's predecesor.

Greg

Edited January 18, 2005 by Greg Wagner

[Tim Gratz]

(see post # 54 below)

Edited January 18, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Greg Wagner]

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg.  It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will.  In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree.  Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1)  Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2)  Cubella's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA.  Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.  MORE TO COME

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for providing me with the background. I look forward to reading your next post.

[Tim Gratz]

Greg wrote:

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg. It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will. In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree. Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1) Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2) Cubela's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA. Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.

4) September 7, 19963, Cubela approaches the CIA in Brazi and says he will stay in Cuba if he can organize a coup to overthrow Castro. As part of the coup, he personally agrees to "eliminate" Castro.

5) On the very same day that Cubela recontacts the CIA, Castro goes to the Braziliam embassy (remember that Cubela was in Brazil) and warns America that if its leaders continue plots to"eliminate" Cuban leaders, American leaders themselves will not be safe.

6) Some members of the CIA do not think the CIA should continue dealing with Cubela, fearing that he is a double agent for Castro (in part because of the coincidental timing of the Castro "threat" to retaliate. But Richard Helms decides to proceed with the operation.

7) Cubela tells the CIA if he is to continue with his plan to "eliminate" Castro he first wants assurance his plan is supported at the highest level of American government. He even asks for a personal meeting with RFK.

8) On Octoner 29. 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the CIA dept dealing with Cuba, flies to Paris, meets with Cubela, and represents himself as the "personal emissary of Robert F. Kennedy" and assures Cubela that RFK supports his plan to "eliminate" Castro.

9) Tuesday, November 19, 1963, President Kennedy meets with French journalist Jean Daniel, who has a meeting with Castro scheduled for the next day. The meeting is changed, however, to the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963.

10) On Friday, November 22, 1963, it wa the early evening when Nestor Sanchez, the CIA officer for Cubela, met with Cubela in Paris. Sanchez has bought with him a "poison pen" designed by the CIA for Cubela to kill Castro. It has a fine hypodermic needle that can xxxxx Castro's skin and inject him with a deadly poison with Castro hardly feeling it.

Sanchez is delivering this poison pen to Cubela at the same time the French journalist is meeting with Castro to discuss Kennedy's interest in pusuing an accomodation with Cuba.

Also, at the same hour that Sanchez is delivering the CIA poison pen to Cubela, President Kennedy is shot to death in Dallas.

Robert agrees that Cubela was an agent provocateur sent by Castro, apparently to determine if the Kennedys personally endorsed the CIA plots to kill him. Because Cubela did not hear from RFK himself, Robert argues that Cubela was unable to confirm to Castro that the Kennedys endorsed the plan. I argue, however, that there was no reason for Cubela to disbelieve Fitzgerald that he was "RFK's personal emissary".

The Cubela operation is reported in many books, including Russo's "Live By the Sword" (a book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) and "The Very Best Men" by veteran Washington correspodent Evan Thomas. I commend both books to you.

The basic facts of the Cubela affair are not disputed. The question is what relationship exists between what was going on with Cubela in Paris in Oct and Nov of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination. If there is no relationship between what was happening with the Cubela caper in the fall of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination (apparently Mr. Charles-Dunne's position), it must rank as one of the most bizarre co-incidences in the history of the world.

IMO, Castro was "backed in to a corner" by the repeated CIA efforts to kill him. If JFK knew of the Cubea operation, the peace talks with Daniel were hypocritical. But if did not know, Fitzgerald's representations to Cubela could reasonably lead Castro to believe that he did.

It has also been reported that Cubela while he was meeting with the CIA, Cubela was also in contact with Valery Kostikov, a member of the KGB's Dept specializing in terror and assassination.

I noted in a different thread that the magazine "George", published by President Kennedy's son for several years before his tragic death, only had one article re the assassination in its four years of publication. It was a report on the Cubela operation written by Edward Jay Epstein.

Edited January 18, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Dawn Meredith]

Greg wrote:

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg.  It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will.  In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree.  Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1)  Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2)  Cubela's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA.  Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.

4)  September 7, 19963, Cubela approaches the CIA in Brazi and says he will stay in Cuba if he can organize a coup to overthrow Castro.  As part of the coup, he personally agrees to "eliminate" Castro.

5)    On the very same day that Cubela recontacts the CIA, Castro goes to the Braziliam embassy (remember that Cubela was in Brazil) and warns America that if its leaders continue plots to"eliminate" Cuban leaders, American leaders themselves will not be safe.

6)    Some members of the CIA do not think the CIA should continue dealing with Cubela, fearing that he is a double agent for Castro (in part because of the coincidental timing of the Castro "threat" to retaliate.  But Richard Helms decides to proceed with the operation.

7)    Cubela tells the CIA if he is to continue with his plan to "eliminate" Castro he first wants assurance his plan is supported at the highest level of American government.  He even asks for a personal meeting with RFK.

8)  On Octoner 29. 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the CIA dept dealing with Cuba, flies to Paris, meets with Cubela, and represents himself as the "personal emissary of Robert F. Kennedy" and assures Cubela that RFK supports his plan to "eliminate" Castro.

9)  Tuesday, November 19, 1963, President Kennedy meets with French journalist Jean Daniel, who has a meeting with Castro scheduled for the next day.  The meeting is changed, however, to the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963.

10)  On Friday, November 22, 1963, it wa the early evening when Nestor Sanchez, the CIA officer for Cubela, met with Cubela in Paris.  Sanchez has bought with him a "poison pen" designed by the CIA for Cubela to kill Castro.  It has a fine hypodermic needle that can xxxxx Castro's skin and inject him with a deadly poison with Castro hardly feeling it.

 

Sanchez is delivering this poison pen to Cubela at the same time the French journalist is meeting with Castro to discuss Kennedy's interest in pusuing an accomodation with Cuba.

Also, at the same hour that Sanchez is delivering the CIA poison pen to Cubela, President Kennedy is shot to death in Dallas.

Robert agrees that Cubela was an agent provocateur sent by Castro, apparently to determine if the Kennedys personally endorsed the CIA plots to kill him.  Because Cubela did not hear from RFK himself, Robert argues that Cubela was unable to confirm to Castro that the Kennedys endorsed the plan.  I argue, however, that there was no reason for Cubela to disbelieve Fitzgerald that he was "RFK's personal emissary".

The Cubela operation is reported in many books, including Russo's "Live By the Sword" (a book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) and "The Very Best Men" by veteran Washington correspodent Evan Thomas.  I commend both books to you.

The basic facts of the Cubela affair are not disputed.  The question is what relationship exists between what was going on with Cubela in Paris in Oct and Nov of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination.  If there is no relationship between what was happening with the Cubela caper in the fall of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination (apparently Mr. Charles-Dunne's position), it must rank as one of the most bizarre co-incidences in the history of the world.

IMO, Castro was "backed in to a corner" by the repeated CIA efforts to kill him.  If JFK knew of the Cubea operation, the peace talks with Daniel were hypocritical.  But if did not know, Fitzgerald's representations to Cubela could reasonably lead Castro to believe that he did.

It has also been reported that Cubela while he was meeting with the CIA, Cubela was also in contact with Valery Kostikov, a member of the KGB's Dept specializing in terror and assassination.

 

I noted in a different thread that the magazine "George", published by President Kennedy's son for several years before his tragic death, only had one article re the assassination in its four years of publication.  It was a report on the Cubela operation written by Edward Jay Epstein.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

_________________________--

JFK Jr. did commission an article for George on assassination theories. Unfortunately he choose the wrong person. Jonathan Vankin, who put out a very good book called "Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes From JFK to the CIA Terrorist Connection". This book covers the gammit and is an excellent book, with the exception of a few pages. So, JFk Jr thought he was on the right track, however the article produced by Vankin was trash and therefore rejected for publication. It was on UFO's and other equally absurd subjects. The total opposite of Vankin's book. But prior to his death JFK Jr was really getting to the heart of some serious matters: Recall he actually interviewed Richard Mellon Scaife in the Jan 1999 issue of George. Kennedy himself did this interview of the man behind the "vast right wing conspiracy". He was on the right trail. And on many of them before "his tragic death".

Not to change the subject, but I must add: do some research ON this "tragic death". Just google "JFK JR and murder " and read.

Dawn

[Dawn Meredith]

Greg wrote:

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg.   It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will.  In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree.  Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1)  Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2)  Cubela's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA.  Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.

4)   September 7, 19963, Cubela approaches the CIA in Brazi and says he will stay in Cuba if he can organize a coup to overthrow Castro.  As part of the coup, he personally agrees to "eliminate" Castro.

5)    On the very same day that Cubela recontacts the CIA, Castro goes to the Braziliam embassy (remember that Cubela was in Brazil) and warns America that if its leaders continue plots to"eliminate" Cuban leaders, American leaders themselves will not be safe.

6)    Some members of the CIA do not think the CIA should continue dealing with Cubela, fearing that he is a double agent for Castro (in part because of the coincidental timing of the Castro "threat" to retaliate.  But Richard Helms decides to proceed with the operation.

7)     Cubela tells the CIA if he is to continue with his plan to "eliminate" Castro he first wants assurance his plan is supported at the highest level of American government.  He even asks for a personal meeting with RFK.

8)  On Octoner 29. 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the CIA dept dealing with Cuba, flies to Paris, meets with Cubela, and represents himself as the "personal emissary of Robert F. Kennedy" and assures Cubela that RFK supports his plan to "eliminate" Castro.

9)   Tuesday, November 19, 1963, President Kennedy meets with French journalist Jean Daniel, who has a meeting with Castro scheduled for the next day.  The meeting is changed, however, to the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963.

10)   On Friday, November 22, 1963, it wa the early evening when Nestor Sanchez, the CIA officer for Cubela, met with Cubela in Paris.  Sanchez has bought with him a "poison pen" designed by the CIA for Cubela to kill Castro.  It has a fine hypodermic needle that can xxxxx Castro's skin and inject him with a deadly poison with Castro hardly feeling it.

 

Sanchez is delivering this poison pen to Cubela at the same time the French journalist is meeting with Castro to discuss Kennedy's interest in pusuing an accomodation with Cuba.

Also, at the same hour that Sanchez is delivering the CIA poison pen to Cubela, President Kennedy is shot to death in Dallas.

Robert agrees that Cubela was an agent provocateur sent by Castro, apparently to determine if the Kennedys personally endorsed the CIA plots to kill him.  Because Cubela did not hear from RFK himself, Robert argues that Cubela was unable to confirm to Castro that the Kennedys endorsed the plan.  I argue, however, that there was no reason for Cubela to disbelieve Fitzgerald that he was "RFK's personal emissary".

The Cubela operation is reported in many books, including Russo's "Live By the Sword" (a book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) and "The Very Best Men" by veteran Washington correspodent Evan Thomas.  I commend both books to you.

The basic facts of the Cubela affair are not disputed.  The question is what relationship exists between what was going on with Cubela in Paris in Oct and Nov of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination.  If there is no relationship between what was happening with the Cubela caper in the fall of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination (apparently Mr. Charles-Dunne's position), it must rank as one of the most bizarre co-incidences in the history of the world.

IMO, Castro was "backed in to a corner" by the repeated CIA efforts to kill him.  If JFK knew of the Cubea operation, the peace talks with Daniel were hypocritical.  But if did not know, Fitzgerald's representations to Cubela could reasonably lead Castro to believe that he did.

It has also been reported that Cubela while he was meeting with the CIA, Cubela was also in contact with Valery Kostikov, a member of the KGB's Dept specializing in terror and assassination.

 

I noted in a different thread that the magazine "George", published by President Kennedy's son for several years before his tragic death, only had one article re the assassination in its four years of publication.  It was a report on the Cubela operation written by Edward Jay Epstein.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

_____________________

My response re JFk jr and Geroge mag is above. Had a hard time posting it, darn computer problems.

Dawn

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Greg wrote:

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg.  It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will.  In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree.  Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1)  Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2)  Cubela's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA.  Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.

This is certainly the Agency POV.  However, when Anthony Summers interviewed Cubela in prison back in 1978 [if memory serves], there were two major points [and a few minor ones] in CIA's version that Cubela adamantly disputed.  The first point was who made the first approach [CIA recruited him, according to Cubela]. 

4)  September 7, 19963, Cubela approaches the CIA in Brazi and says he will stay in Cuba if he can organize a coup to overthrow Castro.  As part of the coup, he personally agrees to "eliminate" Castro.

5)    On the very same day that Cubela recontacts the CIA, Castro goes to the Braziliam embassy (remember that Cubela was in Brazil) and warns America that if its leaders continue plots to"eliminate" Cuban leaders, American leaders themselves will not be safe.

I place some importance in the time and place of Castro's announcement.  Tim has previously referred to this as a "threat," which is, again, the CIA 'party line.'  He has now downgraded the "threat" to a warning, which I'll take as a hint of some progress....

6)    Some members of the CIA do not think the CIA should continue dealing with Cubela, fearing that he is a double agent for Castro (in part because of the coincidental timing of the Castro "threat" to retaliate.  But Richard Helms decides to proceed with the operation.

And yet, despite the latter-day assertions that CIA was only doing the Kennedys' bidding by grooming Cubela to murder Castro, nobody within CIA thought to mention these details to their own boss, John McCone.  This can only be because he had been appointed to the job by the Kennedys, who were deliberately being excluded from the "loop."  CIA was not pursuing Kennedy's instructions, but arrogating unto itself the right make its own policy, irrespective of what the President wanted; in fact, it was in direct contradiction to what Kennedy had wanted.  Nor was it the first time.

There is ample precedent for this.  Perhaps the most telling early instance is when Frank Bender/Gerry Droller gave these instructions to his Cuban troops just prior to the Bay of Pigs:  "In the event that the President orders the invasion to be aborted, we'll pretend that you've taken me and your other CIA leaders hostage, and continue with our plans anyway."

At each step, CIA disregarded Presidential decisions it didn't like, and proceeded with its own plans anyway.  The Bender episode was one; Cubela was another.

7)    Cubela tells the CIA if he is to continue with his plan to "eliminate" Castro he first wants assurance his plan is supported at the highest level of American government.  He even asks for a personal meeting with RFK.

Which I interpret differently than does Tim.  We know that Castro was onto the Cubela plot, based upon the time and place of his Brazilian Embassy announcement.  What he now wished to determine was whether the plot had the highest US authorization.  Or was it just another case of CIA pursuing its own policies, again?  Remember, this was all taking place while Castro was receiving clandestine peace feelers from Kennedy emissaries.  Surely, Castro must have been baffled by the disparity between the approaches made by Kennedy, and those made by CIA.  Why, it was almost as if CIA's provocations were designed to scuttle the peace feelers made by Kennedy.  [My sarcasm is intentional] 

8)  On Octoner 29. 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the CIA dept dealing with Cuba, flies to Paris, meets with Cubela, and represents himself as the "personal emissary of Robert F. Kennedy" and assures Cubela that RFK supports his plan to "eliminate" Castro.

Let's not leave out any gory details, Tim.  Lie number one told by FitzGerald was that he was acting at RFK's direction.  Why?  Because Cubela had demanded to meet with RFK.  Were CIA actually pursuing RFK's goals, as it later contended, why didn't RFK show up himself?  Or at least send a letter bearing RFK's signature, to assure the prospective assassin that he had the biggest friends in the highest circles of Washington government?

Lie number two: FitzGerald didn't tell Cubela that he was a CIA officer, but claimed to be a senior US Senator.  I believe that was a self-defeating fib.  Cuban intelligence would, or should, have known almost immediately that the man who met with Cubela was not what he pretended to be.  And yet, if the plots had Oval Office approval, the Cubans must surely have wondered why CIA thought this ruse necessary.

Lie number three is one that Tim didn't invent, but repeats here anyway, as though it were true.  It is a demonstrable fact that the first plots to kill Castro - which remained in place throughout, irrespective of what the Kennedys instructed - were hatched by CIA before Kennedy had even been elected.  Consequently, it is untrue when Tim attributes such plans to either Robert Kennedy or Cubela.  These were CIA plans from the outset, and they continued well after the point in time when Tim alleges Johnson ordered them to stop [for which assertion I'd still like a citation, Tim.]  If Johnson gave such an order, then by its continuance with Cubela alone, apparently CIA disregarded that President, just as they had done with his predecessor.

     

9)  Tuesday, November 19, 1963, President Kennedy meets with French journalist Jean Daniel, who has a meeting with Castro scheduled for the next day.  The meeting is changed, however, to the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963.

10)  On Friday, November 22, 1963, it wa the early evening when Nestor Sanchez, the CIA officer for Cubela, met with Cubela in Paris.  Sanchez has bought with him a "poison pen" designed by the CIA for Cubela to kill Castro.  It has a fine hypodermic needle that can xxxxx Castro's skin and inject him with a deadly poison with Castro hardly feeling it.

 

Cubela told Summers the pen didn't contain a poison needle, but held a compartment for a bullet.  The distinction isn't that important; in either case it was designed to kill Castro. 

One might reasonably wonder what happened to that pen.  There are a limited number of choices.

a] Cubela took the pen.  If so, where did it go and why was it not used? 

b] Cubela refused to take the pen [per his version].  If so, why didn't he take it?  For a man who had been badgering CIA for a way to kill Castro, his reluctance to accept that weapon is rather unusual.   

Sanchez is delivering this poison pen to Cubela at the same time the French journalist is meeting with Castro to discuss Kennedy's interest in pusuing an accomodation with Cuba.

Also, at the same hour that Sanchez is delivering the CIA poison pen to Cubela, President Kennedy is shot to death in Dallas.

Robert agrees that Cubela was an agent provocateur sent by Castro, apparently to determine if the Kennedys personally endorsed the CIA plots to kill him.  Because Cubela did not hear from RFK himself, Robert argues that Cubela was unable to confirm to Castro that the Kennedys endorsed the plan.  I argue, however, that there was no reason for Cubela to disbelieve Fitzgerald that he was "RFK's personal emissary".

Had FitzGerald admitted to Cubela that he was CIA, there may have been less reason to suspect his veracity, and his true intentions.  However, by over-inflating his importance in pretending to be a senior US Senator, FitzGerald tipped his hand, I believe, and gave the Cubans ample reason to "smell a rat."  Assuming that RFK had ordered the Cubela project to proceed, why didn't he just send a senior US Senator to meet with the prospective assassin?  Or some other emissary whose bona fides would pass muster with the Cubans?   

The Cubela operation is reported in many books, including Russo's "Live By the Sword" (a book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) and "The Very Best Men" by veteran Washington correspodent Evan Thomas.  I commend both books to you.

It's also dealt with at greath length by other authors whose sources were not solely Agency personnel.  I found Summers' treatment of the Cubela issue interesting, for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, Summers actually bothered to interview Cubela, which none of the CIA toadies thought necessary.  I would argue that alone distinguishes Summers from all others who merely rewrite the original Agency script, without revision. 

Second, while Summers cautioned his readers that whatever Cubela said might be self-serving - and should be judged accordingly - Cubela had ample opportunity in the course of the interview to skew his story against CIA in a number of ways.  He declined to do so, and actually confirmed aspects of the Agency version of events when he either didn't need to, or when it went against his self-interest. 

Summers informed his readers that, on the whole, he found Cubela and his version of events more credible than the stories concocted by CIA operatives who, it should be remembered, also had their own self-serving agenda. 

In short, CIA and its various literary publicists claim one thing.  An impartial and clear-headed assessment of that claim leads to another conclusion, entirely.

The basic facts of the Cubela affair are not disputed. 

With all due respect, Tim, the points I raised above do dispute at least some of the key "basic facts."  Russo and his ilk will not thank me for raising them, as you won't find any of them covered in their respective literary doorstops.  Those seem like rather glaring omissions from works that purport to be truthful or comprehensive.

The question is what relationship exists between what was going on with Cubela in Paris in Oct and Nov of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination.  If there is no relationship between what was happening with the Cubela caper in the fall of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination (apparently Mr. Charles-Dunne's position), it must rank as one of the most bizarre co-incidences in the history of the world.

Tim, I didn't say that there is no relationship; only that it's not the relationship that CIA apologists and damage-controllers would have you believe.

IMO, Castro was "backed in to a corner" by the repeated CIA efforts to kill him.  If JFK knew of the Cubea operation, the peace talks with Daniel were hypocritical.  But if did not know, Fitzgerald's representations to Cubela could reasonably lead Castro to believe that he did.

It has also been reported that Cubela while he was meeting with the CIA, Cubela was also in contact with Valery Kostikov, a member of the KGB's Dept specializing in terror and assassination.

And so did Oswald.  If you agree that he didn't kill the President either, then how is this damaging information against Cubela?  If it is true that Cubela was in contact with Kostikov, I would argue it's likely that both Cubela and Oswald were finessed into those contacts with Kostikov, by the same third party, for the very same reason in each case. 

With both men, such contacts with Kostikov were pre-arranged in advance of the assassination, for the ugly things they would wrongly imply after the assassination.  But what third party was in contact with both Oswald and Cubela before the assassination, and also in a position to manipulate them into such contacts with Kostikov, for that purpose?  I'll let the reader decide the likeliest answer.

 

I noted in a different thread that the magazine "George", published by President Kennedy's son for several years before his tragic death, only had one article re the assassination in its four years of publication.  It was a report on the Cubela operation written by Edward Jay Epstein.

Whose specialty for the past several decades seems to be carrying James Angleton's ancient baggage.

We have ample reason to remember Angleton's deceit and duplicity, even if Tim would prefer that we not do so.  Angleton was, after all, the man who protested to the Church Committee that: "It is inconceivable that a secret intelligence arm of the Government has to comply with all the overt orders of the Govemment."  

That is the level of loyalty to the President - the Commander in Chief - that one can expect from the CIA personnel behind these old shenanigans.

"Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges!"

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Greg Wagner]

(Tim Gratz @ Jan 18 2005, 04:54 AM)

Greg wrote:

Excellent debate folks. I've never been one who believed that Castro could have or would have pulled off the assassination. I was aware of the Daniel/Castro meeting and have always held that that meeting, with it's discussions of a peaceful co-existance, supported the idea that it would not be in Castro's best interest to remove Kennedy. Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but is there evidence that 1) Cubela met with an Agency man in Paris that day, 2) that the topic of discussion was Castro's murder, and 3) that Cubela was a double agent and informed Fidel?

Thanks for the great discussion.

Thanks for your comments, Greg.  It is a good debate thanks largely to Robert Charles-Dunne, my "sparring partner", if you will.  In a post I am working on in response to his, you will see that in fact there are a number of items upon which we do agree.  Let me try to quickly respond to your questions since Robert and I begin with knowledge of the basic facts in the Cubela affair.

1)  Oct 1956 Cubela a member of an anti-Baptista group (but not Castro's), walks into a fancy night club and guns down the head of Baptista's military intelligence;

2)  Cubela's group and Casto's join forces;

3) 1961 Cubela approaches the CIA.  Wants to defect. CIA encourages him to stay in Cuba.

4)  September 7, 19963, Cubela approaches the CIA in Brazi and says he will stay in Cuba if he can organize a coup to overthrow Castro.  As part of the coup, he personally agrees to "eliminate" Castro.

5)    On the very same day that Cubela recontacts the CIA, Castro goes to the Braziliam embassy (remember that Cubela was in Brazil) and warns America that if its leaders continue plots to"eliminate" Cuban leaders, American leaders themselves will not be safe.

6)    Some members of the CIA do not think the CIA should continue dealing with Cubela, fearing that he is a double agent for Castro (in part because of the coincidental timing of the Castro "threat" to retaliate.  But Richard Helms decides to proceed with the operation.

7)    Cubela tells the CIA if he is to continue with his plan to "eliminate" Castro he first wants assurance his plan is supported at the highest level of American government.  He even asks for a personal meeting with RFK.

8)  On Octoner 29. 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the CIA dept dealing with Cuba, flies to Paris, meets with Cubela, and represents himself as the "personal emissary of Robert F. Kennedy" and assures Cubela that RFK supports his plan to "eliminate" Castro.

9)  Tuesday, November 19, 1963, President Kennedy meets with French journalist Jean Daniel, who has a meeting with Castro scheduled for the next day.  The meeting is changed, however, to the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963.

10)  On Friday, November 22, 1963, it wa the early evening when Nestor Sanchez, the CIA officer for Cubela, met with Cubela in Paris.  Sanchez has bought with him a "poison pen" designed by the CIA for Cubela to kill Castro.  It has a fine hypodermic needle that can xxxxx Castro's skin and inject him with a deadly poison with Castro hardly feeling it.

 

Sanchez is delivering this poison pen to Cubela at the same time the French journalist is meeting with Castro to discuss Kennedy's interest in pusuing an accomodation with Cuba.

Also, at the same hour that Sanchez is delivering the CIA poison pen to Cubela, President Kennedy is shot to death in Dallas.

Robert agrees that Cubela was an agent provocateur sent by Castro, apparently to determine if the Kennedys personally endorsed the CIA plots to kill him.  Because Cubela did not hear from RFK himself, Robert argues that Cubela was unable to confirm to Castro that the Kennedys endorsed the plan.  I argue, however, that there was no reason for Cubela to disbelieve Fitzgerald that he was "RFK's personal emissary".

The Cubela operation is reported in many books, including Russo's "Live By the Sword" (a book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize) and "The Very Best Men" by veteran Washington correspodent Evan Thomas.  I commend both books to you.

The basic facts of the Cubela affair are not disputed.  The question is what relationship exists between what was going on with Cubela in Paris in Oct and Nov of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination.  If there is no relationship between what was happening with the Cubela caper in the fall of 1963 and the Kennedy assassination (apparently Mr. Charles-Dunne's position), it must rank as one of the most bizarre co-incidences in the history of the world.

IMO, Castro was "backed in to a corner" by the repeated CIA efforts to kill him.  If JFK knew of the Cubea operation, the peace talks with Daniel were hypocritical.  But if did not know, Fitzgerald's representations to Cubela could reasonably lead Castro to believe that he did.

It has also been reported that Cubela while he was meeting with the CIA, Cubela was also in contact with Valery Kostikov, a member of the KGB's Dept specializing in terror and assassination.

 

I noted in a different thread that the magazine "George", published by President Kennedy's son for several years before his tragic death, only had one article re the assassination in its four years of publication.  It was a report on the Cubela operation written by Edward Jay Epstein.

Compelling, I'll say that. I will have to put those two books on my list. I am particularly interested in the ultimate source of the Cubela assertions and the credibility/reliability of that source. Just playing devil's advocate here for a minute guys, but could the Cubela double agent affair just be another attempt to lay the blame at Castro's feet like the Oswald/Mexico City fabrication by the CIA was attempting to do?

Greg

Edited January 18, 2005 by Greg Wagner

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Compelling, I'll say that. I will have to put those two books on my list. I am particularly interested in the ultimate source of the Cubela assertions and the credibility/reliability of that source. Just playing devil's advocate here for a minute guys, but could the Cubela double agent affair just be another attempt to lay the blame at Castro's feet like the Oswald/Mexico City fabrication by the CIA was attempting to do?

Greg

Greg:

You've cut straight to the pith and through all the window-dressing in a single sentence.  That is precisely my assertion, in direct opposition to Tim's position.  I also thank you for noting, as you did, that the the LHO/Mexico City charade was a "fabrication by the CIA."  Given the Agency's omnipresence throughout the Cubela provocation, I further assert that both exercises were designed in furtherance of the same aim: laying false "evidence" before the assassination to blame Castro for the assassination.  Now, what can we deduce about any person, party or Agency that prefabricates such false "evidence" prior to a crime, if not that they are responsible for the crime [or at least an accomplice to it]? 

It often feels pointless to draw subtle distinctions and split hairs in a quest for certainty in this case, when the result appears to fall upon deaf ears.  I take great comfort from your comment, as it confirms to me that my efforts perhaps are not entirely pointless.

And, while you're adding books to your 'to-read' list, can I suggest you include a few more, if you haven't already read them?

Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and Deep Politics II [particularly the latter] should be required reading for anyone wishing to truly parse the often-conflicting, often-amorphous evidence.  Neither book qualifies as the world's easiest reading, but each will reward the reader's stamina and diligence, particularly the latter.

John Newman's Oswald & The CIA is also of value, as are Dick Russell's The Man Who Knew Too Much [the original edition is superior to, albeit more confusing to the reader than, the reissue], and Anthony Summers' Conspiracy [any edition.]

If nothing else, these will help to balance the wholly one-sided viewpoint presented by the books Tim has recommended, the agenda of which is not surprising given the Agency sources upon which the authors rely. 

While I think the case presented in such Agency-driven books is knowingly spurious, I encourage students of this case to read everything they can, and reach their own conclusions. 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[John Simkin]

I share Robert’s view that Castro had nothing to do with JFK’s assassination. However, I disagree that JFK did not know about these CIA plots. In fact, there is evidence that suggests that JFK knew about them before he became president.

JFK was a long-term friend of Allen Dulles. In an interview he gave to the John F. Kennedy Library in 1964 Dulles admitted that he and JFK had “fairly continuous” contact throughout the 1950s. They two men met at JFK’s home in Palm Beach. (Dulles stayed with Charles B. Wrightsman, one of JFK’s neighbour).

Another JFK neighbour in Palm Beach was Earl Smith, the US ambassador to Cuba (1957-59). JFK had been having an affair with Earl’s wife, Florence Smith, since 1944 (it was JFK’s longest relationship and lasted until his death). Earl Smith knew about the plots against Castro. So did Dorothy Kilgallen who was the first journalist to write about the Mafia/CIA plots (New York Journal American – 15th September, 1959). Kilgallen was friendly with JFK (they were introduced by Florence – the two women worked together on the New York Journal American in the early 1940s).

Dulles had a meeting with JFK at Hyannis Port on 23rd July, 1960. According to released CIA files the two men talked about “Cold War hotspots”. Another meeting took place on 19th September, when Dulles gave JFK an update of recent events. Charles P. Cabell, deputy CIA director, provided JFK with a third briefing on 2nd November.

According to CIA agent Clarence B. Sprouse, he arranged for a secret meeting to take place between JFK and Richard Bissell during the summer of 1960. Sprouse recalled having to prepare material about a plot against Castro.

In his book, Reflections of a Cold War (1996), Bissell claims that a meeting with JFK was arranged by Joe Alsop (a journalist who was a member of Operation Mockingbird). However, he claims he never told him anything about any secret plans because he was “still working for Eisenhower”.

In an interview he gave to the John F. Kennedy Library in 1967, Bissell admits that he had a meeting “at a fairly early stage in the campaign.” Amazingly, JFK asked Bissell if he could help him with his campaign strategy”. Bissell said he was eager to do this but unfortunately he never “got round to supplying anything in writing”.

Grayston Lynch claimed in an interview in 1997 that Bissell told him that he had a personal relationship with JFK since well before he entered the White House. Biseel also told CIA analyst, R. Harris Smith, that he had a meeting with JFK in February, 1960.

Of course, we do not know for certain what Dulles and Bissell told JFK. However, we have several clues. John M. Patterson was the Democratic governor of Alabama. Patterson had been friends with JFK since 1955.

In the summer of 1960 the CIA approached Patterson and asked if they could use the Alabama Air National Guard to train Cuban exile pilots in Nicaragua for an attack on Cuba. Patterson passed this information onto JFK. Patterson told this story to the John F. Kennedy Library in 1967. Patterson claimed in the interview that JFK responded as if he already knew about the planned invasion. However, when he later viewed the transcript of this interview, he discovered this section on Cuba had been removed. As he told Seymour Hersh in October, 1982, “they classified my own stuff”.

Nixon also knew that JFK had been briefed by the CIA about the plots against Castro. He later accused the CIA of betrayal. JFK was able to use this information to embarrass Nixon. On 19th October, 1960, JFK issued a press release calling for the US government to provide help to Cubans fighting against Castro within and without Cuba. The following day newspapers reported that JFK was calling for the overthrow of Castro. In his memoirs (published in 1978) Nixon claims that it was clear that JFK had been briefed by Dulles. Although he knew about the Bay of Pigs operation, he could not admit to it. Instead he claimed that JFK was being irresponsible calling for illegal action to be taken against Castro.

Nixon was much praised by the liberal press but it enabled JFK to position himself to the right of Nixon. As Nixon said in his Memoirs: “For the first time in the campaign, I got mad at Kennedy personally. I thought that Kennedy, with full knowledge of the facts, was jeopardizing the security of a United States foreign policy operation. And my rage was greater because I could do nothing about it.”

What appears to be clear is that the CIA wanted JFK to be elected in 1960. Had JFK made them promises? If so, one can understand them being very upset with JFK over the Bay of Pigs and his refusal to sanction an invasion of Cuba.

Supporters of the JFK myth continue to claim that he was unaware of Executive Action. There is several pieces of information to suggest that this was not the case. The CIA’s inspector general wrote in 1967 that when interviewed during the investigation into the Drew Pearson article on the plot to kill Castro, William Harvey claimed that Bissell told him when he recruited him to head ZR/RIFLE that JFK had twice urged him “to create such a capability” (to kill Castro).

David Berlin, executive director of the Rockefeller Commission that investigated the illegal activities of the CIA in 1975 said in an interview in 1997 that JFK knew about the CIA plot to assassinate Castro. He added: “Bobby also knew about it. The Kennedys were out to get Castro.” Berlin admitted that some witnesses did attempt to cover this information up but several admitted that JFK knew about the plot to assassinate Castro.

McGeorge Bundy admitted before the Church Committee in July, 1975, that there had been talk of murder in the White House, and the men of the CIA had not been on their own in the assassination plotting.

Samuel Halpern, the executive officer of Task Force W, admitted in an interview with Seymour Hersh that “Kennedy asked Bissell to create a capacity for political assassination.” This, he claims, was the reason why ZR/RIFLE was set up.