Ultimate Sacrifice by Thom Hartmann & Lamar Waldron

[John Simkin]

I plan to ask Santa Claus to bring me Ultimate Sacrifice for Christmas. I also look forward to Waldron and Kaiser joining the forum. In the meantime, am I correct in assuming, based on all I've read so far, that this book shifts all blame for the assassination away from the CIA?

No. Lamar is of the opinion David Morales played an important role in the assassination. After watching the William Law interview, Lamar, and most others who watched it, now believe that Carl Jenkins, of CIA's Miami station, was in charge of the operation. Others like David Phillips, Ted Shackley and Richard Helms were also probably aware of what was going on. CIA involvement resulted in the cover up and the suppression of evidence.

[Tim Carroll]

The main sticking point involved United Nations inspections of Cuba. Documents have just been released that show that JFK's pledge not to invade Cuba was linked to UN inspections.

Because Castro had refused the inspection of Cuba specified in the October exchange of letters, Kennedy withheld a formal pledge not to invade Cuba. At his November 20, 1962 press conference. Kennedy said: "For our part, if all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and kept out of the hemisphere in the future, under adequate verification and safeguards, and if Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist purposes, there will be peace in the Caribbean."

Kennedy instructed John J. McCloy, who was negotiating the formal agreement with the Soviets without knowledge of the secret deal to dismantle the Jupiter missiles, that since the Cubans had refused U.N. verification, this was "the most we can do." No agreement was ever formalized and Kennedy allowed his November 20 statement to stand as his final public word on the settlement. Ted Sorensen later recalled, Kennedy "would have preferred a cleaner solution, but the way this worked out was really all right. We were able to continue our overflights, and Khrushchev got no no-invasion pledge."

In 1970, when Castro was again worrying about an invasion, this time from President Nixon, the Soviets used the construction of a submarine base at Cienfuegos Bay to compel the Americans to finally ratify the no-invasion pledge. Kissinger did so, asserting that the submarine base was prohibited by the 1962 understanding, which he privately described to the president as "never formally buttoned down."

T.C.

[James Richards]

This is not just a theory. Both David Kaiser (Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the Naval War College) and Larry Hancock, have used these documents to come to the same conclusion.

The two strategies were:

(1) Secret negotiations with Castro via Lisa Howard, William Attwood, Jean Daniel, etc.

(2) A secret plot to overthrow Castro on 1st December, 1963. (John Simkin)

Here's an interesting piece given JFK's strategies. This comes from April of 1963.

It should also be pointed out that in May of 1963, Harry Ruiz Williams was telling anyone who would listen that an invasion was inevitable as he had the support of several heavyweight anti-Castro groups.

Curious to say the least.

James

[Dawn Meredith]

Just re-read John's post expressing his feelings on the "ULtimate Sacrifice" book. Will get this book later this year, but I think the view expressed by Lisa Pease, that I posted here, makes some very salient points re this so called "new evidence" of CIA plots with brothers Kennedy to kill Castro.

I don't buy it. Sounds like more CIA disinformation to me.

Dawn

[John Simkin]

Just re-read John's post expressing his feelings on the "ULtimate Sacrifice" book. Will get this book later this year, but I think the view expressed by Lisa Pease, that I posted here, makes some very salient points re this so called "new evidence" of CIA plots with brothers Kennedy to kill Castro.

I don't buy it. Sounds like more CIA disinformation to me.

If so, they are willing to sacrifice several senior figures in the CIA. Seems like a strange case of disinformation.

I have not yet read the book, John. Nor, I imagine, have you. From its reviews I know it does not posit Cuban participation.

Where John has, I think, made progress is in now concluding that there was significant Mafia involvement (a point he had contested with me last winter) and that there were serious efforts afoot for a coup in Cuba (apparently under the code name "AMBLOOD", a rather chilling code name to be sure).

I have read nearly 300 pages so far. I also listened to his presentation and had several conversations with him in Dallas.

I agree I have changed my mind about "Mafia" involvement. All good historians must be willing to change their mind as new evidence becomes available. One of the problems is that historians are often locked into a particular ideology. Hopefully, I am not like that.

One of the reasons I had doubts about the Mafia role concerns its history. It has always been reluctant to "kill" politicians because it feared that this could be the trigger for its destruction (see the Dutch Schulz case). However, Larry Hancock can take credit for changing my mind on this. As he pointed out, it is misleading to talk about the "Mafia" in relation to the assassination. What you had was three mobsters working as individuals. They were only part of a conspiracy that involved anti-Castro Cubans and senior figures in the CIA. I also believe that LBJ's people were also part of this conspiracy. If that is the case, it explains why they knew that the assassination would not trigger its destruction.

[Tim Carroll]

Documents have just been released that show that JFK's pledge not to invade Cuba was linked to UN inspections.

I am very impressed by Ultimate Sacrifice, and unlike with Professor Mellen's book, can see that there is a wealth of new information contained therein. The main exception I take to the book thus far is that it misleadingly packages many of its revelations as new. As can be seen by John's statement above about the no-invasion pledge, even very old information is represented as new.

This is especially the case with regard to the plans for an invasion in late 1963. What has long been termed Second Naval Guerrilla is repackaged here and represented as new, with the authors even giving it a new name of their own: "C-Day." It is far from new information that Desmond FitzGerald said, just four months after the assassination: "If Jack Kennedy had lived, I can assure you we would have gotten rid of Castro by last Christmas."

Bill Turner and Warren Hinckle reported a quarter century ago that Manuel Artime's "MRR was receiving $250,000 a month" to set up the Second Naval Guerrilla operation in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. When Nicaragua's General Luis Somoza viewed the exiles' fleet at Monkey Point in 1963, he announced that "in November strong blows will begin against Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro by groups we are training."

Ultimate Sacrifice unhesitatingly asserts that the Kennedys were not aware of the Cubela plans. The authors do a good job of characterizing the Kennedys' thinking about their planning as "the US aiding 'Cubans helping other Cubans,' not as an assassination plan." One might wonder what effect the Vietnam coup just three weeks before Dallas would have had on the Kennedys' thinking in this regard. We know that years later, E. Howard Hunt worked in Nixon's White House fabricating a cable to implicate President Kennedy in Diem's assassination. In the case of C-Day we have it presented that the Kennedys initiated a coup on Vietnam on November 1 and had one planned for Cuba on December 1. But at least the authors are not asserting that they had two assassinations planned in the span of one month.

I do appreciate the point that there was an operation apart from Dallas that was piggybacked by the assassination conspirators. I have long maintained the same and have posted the memo to H.L. Hunt demonstrating that the administration's operation had been compromised. The hijacked operation framework helps explain both Oswald's and Bobby Kennedy's behaviors. Given that the piggybacking is attributed to Marcello, Trafficante and Rosselli on the Mafia side, and Phillips, Hunt and Morales on the CIA side, I find it surprising that there's no mention of H.L. Hunt in the book. A hybrid operation involving Mafia, CIA and independents would have required just the sort of bankrolling available from H.L. Hunt. If, contrary to the Ultimate Sacrifice conclusion, the leading Mafia figure were found to be Meyer Lansky rather than Marcello, then I would think Howard Hughes to be the likeliest money man.

T.C.

Edited November 22, 2005 by Tim Carroll

[Tim Gratz]

I have not yet had a chance to read the book but intuitively, and based on my respect for the other "Tim", I concur with at least most of Tim Carroll's post. (As you know, I think there is at least some evidence that the Kennedys were aware of the Cubela operation.) Very good analysis, Tim!

Edited November 23, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Carroll]

As you know, I think there is at least some evidence that the Kennedys were aware of the Cubela operation.

What is Tim's evidence? Ultimate Sacrifice makes a persuasive case that the Kennedys were not aware of the Cubela operation. But given Tim Gratz's need to turn every discussion into a Castro-did-it argument, based upon Cubela being a double agent establishing the Kennedys' complicity in assassination attempts, Cubela made a good case against that himself. From Anthony Summers' Not In Your Lifetime, page 315:

"Cubela pointed out that, after his arrest by Cuban intelligence in 1965, he did not reveal his involvement with the CIA in assassination plots. In a country where the regime seizes every opportunity to accuse the CIA, nothing of the sort came up at Cubela's trial. It emerged only in 1975, thanks to the revelations of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Most compelling of all is the fact that Cubela was given a harsh prison sentence - hardly a likely reward for a double agent with an ultimate loyalty to Castro."

T.C.

Edited November 23, 2005 by Tim Carroll

[Chris Cox]

Anyone know how the Brad Ayers presentation went in DC? Details of that? Was he also in Dallas this year? thx

[Paul Byrne]

For all those interested Lamar Waldron is scheduled to appear on the Howard Hughes programme ' The Unexplained ' this coming Saturday on Talk Sport. I'm told he is due ' on air ' about 10pm. Should be good although disappointing that it ' airs ' on a programee of such an ilk.

Best,

Paul Byrne

[John Simkin]

This has just appeared on the web.

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 23 (UPI) -- A new book claims that three mob bosses were behind President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Authors Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann also say that law enforcement agencies protected the three Mafiosi because they had infiltrated a plan to invade Cuba, the St. Petersburg Times reported. The book says the government could not fully investigate without exposing the invasion plot.

Tampa mob boss Santo Trafficante Jr., according to the book "Ultimate Sacrifice," planned to have Kennedy killed in Tampa. But the attempt misfired and Trafficante instead arranged with New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello for the assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

While conspiracy theorists have been pitching the mob connection for years, linking it to Cuba is new. Waldron and Hartmann say that the mobsters not only hated Kennedy because of his brother's investigations but wanted to get Castro out of Cuba to return to their profitable businesses there.

[Frank Agbat]

For all those interested Lamar Waldron is scheduled to appear on the Howard Hughes programme ' The Unexplained ' this coming Saturday on Talk Sport. I'm told he is due ' on air ' about 10pm. Should be good although disappointing that it ' airs ' on a programee of such an ilk.

Best,

Paul Byrne

Lamar Waldron was recently on "Coast to Coast" (George Noory) discussing this book. I believe the archive MP3 of the program is available to their subscribers. I was able to hear the interview and it was very interesting. Waldron's book is next on my list once I'm done reading "The man who knew too much".

[Tim Gratz]

Tim wrote:

Most compelling of all is the fact that Cubela was given a harsh prison sentence - hardly a likely reward for a double agent with an ultimate loyalty to Castro."

Tim, three questions:

1. Would you agree that the likely punishment for Cubans who tried to kill Castro was death not prison?

2. Is there any evidence that Cubela actually spent time in prison? Could this have been a cover story?

3. Any idea why the actaul AMLASH assassination plot was not brought up at Cubela's trial?

Comment:

Whether or not the Kennedys had actual knowledge of the Cubela plot is irrelevant to a scenario that it might have motivated Castro to lash back at the US since he certainly knew the CIA was still trying to kill him and it is doubtful Castro distinguished between the CIA and the rest of the US government. Most seem to believe Castro was aware of the Cubela plot even if Cubela was not acting as a double agent for Castro.

[Tim Carroll]

Tim wrote: Most compelling of all is the fact that Cubela was given a harsh prison sentence - hardly a likely reward for a double agent with an ultimate loyalty to Castro." Tim, three questions:

1. Would you agree that the likely punishment for Cubans who tried to kill Castro was death not prison?

2. Is there any evidence that Cubela actually spent time in prison? Could this have been a cover story?

3. Any idea why the actaul AMLASH assassination plot was not brought up at Cubela's trial?

1. I don't agree that the sentence for trying to kill Castro was necessarily the death penalty. As discussed in the Murgado thread, Castro was capable of a remarkable amicableness toward his worthy adversaries. In the case of Ultimate Sacrifice, we have the specific example of Harry Williams pull a gun on Castro, only to have it be empty.

2. The evidence that Cubela spent time in prison comes from a number of journalists who visited him there, including Anthony Summers.

3. Cubela wasn't suspected of plotting an assassination, even at the time of his arrest. His trip to visit Manuel Artime at one of the ongoing Second Naval Guerrilla (C-Day) camps in 1965 was the espionage for which he was arrested and prosecuted. Admittedly, Castro was reported to have treated Cubela well during incarceration, bringing him books to read.

T.C.

[Tim Gratz]

One of the objections to the theory that Castro participated in or encouraged the assassination is that he would have been foolhardy to do so because had his participation became known it would have invited an invasion of Cuba.

It had been my response that because the US was continuing its efforts to kill Castro that factor [the possibility of a US invasion] would be less important to him because his main objective would be to save his own life.

If the thesis of "The Ultimate Sacrifice" is correct that there was in fact an imminent invasion in the planning stage and endorsed by the Kennedy Administration, then that objection to a "Castro did it" scenario disappears, of course, provided Castro was aware of the plans.

Moreover, it gave him even another reason to strike at the U.S. Both his life and his regime was in danger.

Of course, I understand that Messrs. Waldron and Hartmann do not believe that Castro did it. [That is, that he participated in a hit by prganized crime.] I assume they take this position because they are not aware of evidence of Cuban government involvement, even though the premise of their book provides yet another strong motive for that possible involvement.

Edited November 25, 2005 by Tim Gratz