David Talbot : JFK and the Assassination Plots Against Castro

[John Simkin]

I just wanted to exapnd a bit on your point about the assassination efforts against Castro. It's now clear that that there was a long term effort to assassinate Castro...starting in 1959 in an offer from Sturgis to CIA personnel in Havana (including Morales of course) to set up a an assassination inside Cuba while Castro was traveling to military posts. In the same period of time, crime assets in the U.S. planned to kill him when he traveled to New York to the U.N. In the late 1960-61 time frame, in addition to the Roselli plots, there were multiple CIA paramilitary operations being organized to attack and kill Castro inside Cuba. In SWHT I describe one which was orchestrated by Carl Jenkins and utilized, among others, Felix Rodriquez in a planned sniper attack....another was conducted during a naval mission by Rip Robertson. None of these would have been known to RFK. Bottom line is that all of talk about the Kennedy's plans to kill Castro pales beside these actual documented actions by crime and CIA personnel.

Later Johnson tried to blame all the murder plots on JFK and RFK ("murder inc.) but it just doesn't wash...

As your book points out, RFK was right on the money almost immediately:

"Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters, and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime change in Cuba."