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Silvia Duran and William Seymour in Mexico


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It has been pointed out on another thread that the testimony of Silvia Duran and William Seymour before the HUCA is still classified. I would like to speculate why this testimony has been withheld.

In 1963 Duran was working in the Cuban consul's office in Mexico City. On 27th September, a young American entered the office. He said his name was Lee Harvey Oswald and that he needed a Cuban transit visa.

Oswald told Duran that he planned to leave in three days' time and stay in Cuba for a couple of weeks. He then intended to move onto the Soviet Union. To establish his identity Oswald showed Duran her his passport, correspondence with the American Communist Party, his membership card for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a newspaper clipping about his activities in New Orleans and a photograph of Oswald in custody, accompanied by two police officers.

Duran was suspicious of Oswald. She thought the photograph looked phony. Nor could she understand why Oswald had not applied in advance by contacting the Communist Party in Cuba. Duran told Oswald she could not issue a transit visa without confirmation that he had clearance for travel to the Soviet Union. Oswald was told it would be at least seven days before his transit visa could be issued. Oswald replied that he could only stay for three days.

Oswald returned to the Cuban consul's office later that afternoon. He said he had been to the Soviet Embassy and that they were willing to give him a visa straight away. Duran phoned the embassy and was told that Oswald was lying and that the visa would not be issued for at least four months.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in Dallas shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Duran recognized him as the man who visited the Cuban consul's office on 27th September. However, her husband at the time, said the pictures that appeared in the Mexico papers were of a poor quality. Duran's comments were accepted because of the discovery of her name and phone number in Oswald's address book.

Eusebio Azcue, another man who met Oswald in the office, said the man had dark blond hair and had features quite different from those of the man arrested in Dallas.

The Warren Commission believed Duran rather than Azcue and it was accepted that Oswald was trying to get into Cuba in September, 1963.

Duran was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This testimony is of course classified. However, in 1979 Duran told Anthony Summers that she told the HUCA that the man who visited the office was about her size (5 feet 3.5 inches). This created problems as Oswald was 5 feet 9.5 inches. When Summers showed Duran a film of Oswald taken at the time of his arrest, Duran said: "The man on the film is not like the man I saw here in Mexico City."

It also emerged that when Duran was interviewed by the Mexican authorities soon after the assassination she described the man who visited the Cuban consul's office as being "blond-haired" and with "blue or green eyes". Neither detail fits in with the authentic Oswald. But these details had been removed from the statement by the time it reached the Warren Commission.

How does this all connect in with William Seymour? Is it possible that Seymour told the HUCA that he knew who impersonated Oswald in Mexico in September, 1963. If so, this is evidence that people associated with Seymour set-up Oswald. Seymour, of course, was a member of Interpen and was involved in training anti-Castro Cubans in 1963.

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I'm not so sure about William Seymour posing as LHO in Mexico. At least I had not considered it before. Sylvia Duran says the guy was about her highth, of 5.3,5. How tall is Seymour?

This might only be a coincidence, but something that did occur to me. John Armstrong, who wrote Harvey & Lee, traveled to Argentina to interview one of LHO's friends, from when he was in Russia. I believe this was Anita Zigler. She told him that the LHO in Russia was quite short and was only around 5.3.

Dixie

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I'm not so sure about William Seymour posing as LHO in Mexico. At least I had not considered it before. Sylvia Duran says the guy was about her highth, of 5.3,5. How tall is Seymour?

My point was that Seymour might have known who impersonated Oswald in Mexico in September, 1963. I have always thought that Seymour was a tall man. However, I may be wrong.

Below: Silvia Duran and William Seymour

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I believe their testimony is withheld because both Seymour and Duran worked for American intelligence at one point or another.

I also believe the REAL OSWALD met with Duran and that the telephonic impersonation of Oswald in Mexico was related to a counter-intelligence procedure, whereby information picked up by informant or bug was made to appear as though it was picked up via wiretap. Helms himself said "sources and methods" whenever anyone tried to ask him about this.

The book ZR RIFLE, written with the help of Cuban intelligence, which concludes that Cuban exiles killed Kennedy with the help of the CIA, or vice-versa, includes the visa application Oswald gave Duran. It has the picture of the real Oswald attached!

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I believe their testimony is withheld because both Seymour and Duran worked for American intelligence at one point or another. (Pat Speer)

Hi Pat,

In a rather boisterous interview that Gerry Hemming gave to A. J. Weberman, GPH claimed Seymour was informing for ONI.

James

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In a rather boisterous interview that Gerry Hemming gave to A. J. Weberman, GPH claimed Seymour was informing for ONI.

It is true that many agencies had agents spying on groups, both left and right. There is a good chance that these spies were in groups involved in plotting the assassination of JFK. If that is the case, one would expect one of them to have told the organization they were working for what had happened. I expect they did. However, their stories never came out. Maybe these individuals also had accidents. Is that what happened to Seymour's friends, Edwin Anderson Collins and James Arthur Lewis. Is it possible that William Seymour was one of those spies with a conscience? Did he tell the House Select Committee on Assassinations what he knew about the case. If that included the fact that he had reported on this to the FBI/CIA in 1963, this testimony would have to be withheld from the American public.

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A couple of points about the Duran story. Duran was arrested by the Mexican police after the assassination. Duran was detained for several hours and was questioned extensively. Four days later she was arrested on the orders of the CIA. Richard Helms cabled Winston Scott: "We want to ensure that neither Silvia Duran nor Cubans get impression that Americans behind her rearrest. In other words, we want Mexican authorities to take responsibility for whole affair."

Duran was not interviewed by the Warren Commission. Instead they relied on the interviews carried out by the Mexican Police (in truth the CIA). According to Duran the police removed part of her statement that indicated that she had dounts about the man being Oswald (she for example told them he had blond hair).

The Warren Report attempted to smear Duran in case she later questioned their interpretation of events (she was warned not to and in fact she did keep quiet for several years).

Senora Duran is a well-educated native of Mexico, who was 26 years old at the time of her interrogation. She is married to Senor Horacio Duran Navarro, a 40-year-old industrial designer, and has a young child. Although Senora Duran denies being a member of the Communist Party or otherwise connected with it, both Durans have been active in far left, political affairs in Mexico, believe in Marxist ideology, and sympathize with the government of Fidel Castro, and Senor Duran has written articles for El Dia, a pro-Communist newspaper in Mexico City. The Commission has reliable evidence from a confidential source that Senora Duran as well as other personnel at the Cuban Embassy were genuinely upset upon receiving news of President Kennedy's death. Senora Duran's statements were made to Mexican officials soon after the assassination, and no significant inaccuracies in them have been detected. Documents fitting the description given by Senora Duran of the documents Oswald had shown her, plus a notation which she said she had given him, were found among his possessions after his arrest.

Anthony Summers discovered other witnesses that indicated that someone else was playing the role of Oswald in Mexico.

Duran and her former boss both remembered the Oswald at the consulate as being blond-haired. She has also said she remembers him as having had "blue or green eyes." Neither detail fits with the authentic Oswald. Persuasively, Duran's signed statement following her interrogation by Mexican investigators-within days of the assassination-specified that Oswald's hair was blond. But that detail was removed from a second statement, which was likely a deliberate fabrication.

Even so, one might still put the Duran description down to faulty memory-one might even dismiss the matter of height-were it not for the spontaneous recollection of yet another Mexico City witness.

In 1963 Oscar Contreras was studying to be a lawyer at Mexico City's National University. He belonged to a left-wing student group which supported the Castro revolution and had contacts in the Cuban Embassy. One evening in late September 1963-the time of the Oswald incidents in Mexico-Contreras and three like-minded friends were sitting in a university cafeteria when a man at a table nearby struck up a conversation. He introduced himself curiously, spelling out his entire name"Lee Harvey Oswald." That made Contreras and his friends laugh, because Harvey and Oswald were more familiar as the names of characters in a popular cartoon about rabbits. Indeed, says Contreras, that was the main reason the name stuck in his mind. With minor variations, "Oswald" gave the students a familiar story. He said he was a painter, had to leave Texas because the FBI was bothering him, and declared that life in the United States was not for him. He wanted to go to Cuba, but for some reason the Cuban consulate was refusing him a visa. Could the students help-through their friends in the Embassy? Contreras and his friends said they would try. That night they talked to their Cuban contacts, including Consul Azcue himself and a Cuban intelligence officer, and were sharply warned to break off contact with "Oswald." The Cuban officials said they were suspicious of Oswald and believed he was trying to infiltrate left-wing groups. When Oswald next came to see them, Contreras and his friends told him that the Cubans did not trust him and would not give him a visa. "Oswald" continued trying to ingratiate himself and ended up spending the night at their apartment. He left next morning still begging for help in getting to Cuba, and the next time Contreras heard the name Oswald was after the assassination. He made no secret of the recent encounter but did not bother to report it to the American Embassy. Like many ordinary Mexicans, Contreras has little love for the American authorities. His story became known only in 1967, after he mentioned it in conversation with the local U.S. consul." Congress' Assassinations Committee, concluding that neither the CIA nor the FBI had adequately investigated the matter, tried to reach Contreras in 1978. They failed to locate him, but I traced him easily enough in the bustling Mexico town of Tampico. He had become a successful journalist, was the editor of the local newspaper, El Mundo, and I judged him a good witness. The details he supplied add to the suspicion that the Oswald who visited the Cuban consulate was an impostor.

Like Azcue, Contreras said the "Oswald" he met looked more than thirty years old. Like Sylvia Duran, he recalled very positively that Oswald was short-he too thought at most 5' 6". He said he would normally be reluctant to be so specific, but his recall on this point is persuasive. Contreras himself is only 5' 9" tall, and he clearly recalled looking down at the man he calls "Oswald the Rabbit."

The Mexico evidence is even more complex than is presented here. A fair analysis today, however, suggests that the real Oswald may indeed have visited the consulate at one stage on Friday, September 27, but that an impostor may have been involved at a later stage of the contacts with the consulate. A phone call from the Cuban consulate to the Soviet embassy on Saturday, September 28, in which Oswald was supposedly a participant, almost certainly involved an impostor. If that suspicion is correct, what was going on?

The witness Contreras has offered food for thought. Perhaps he was being oversuspicious, he told the author, but he could not understand how, of all the thousands of students in Mexico City, the man called Oswald picked on three who really did have contacts in the Cuban embassy. Contreras remembered that he and his friends were drinking coffee, after a discussion and film show in the philosophy department, when the strange American accosted them. Nothing about the evening, or the moment, had anything to do with Cuba. How did the American know that these particular students might be able to help him?"

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John:

    Great posts.  I've long held that the real answers to many of our questions lay in the Mexico City episode.  A few points in that regard: 

You wrote:

To establish his identity Oswald showed Duran her his passport, correspondence with the American Communist Party, his membership card for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a newspaper clipping about his activities in New Orleans and a photograph of Oswald in custody, accompanied by two police officers.

He may also have flashed a US Communist Party card to the Cuban consular staff in Mexico City.  They recalled it as being "brand new," or words to that effect.  The only problem with this is that Oswald wasn't a member of the Party, and hence had no such card.  Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, there was no press coverage in New Orleans' newspapers bearing his photo.  [Though, if memory servces, the consular staff indicated otherwise.]  The same applies to a photo of Oswald in police custody.  While such a photo may have existed, one would think it might have come to light in the past forty years, if for no other reason than to seal Oswald's reputation as a law-breaker.  Certainly, no such photo was found among his effects.

Senora Duran is a well-educated native of Mexico, who was 26 years old at the time of her interrogation. She is married to Senor Horacio Duran Navarro, a 40-year-old industrial designer, and has a young child. Although Senora Duran denies being a member of the Communist Party or otherwise connected with it, both Durans have been active in far left, political affairs in Mexico, believe in Marxist ideology, and sympathize with the government of Fidel Castro, and Senor Duran has written articles for El Dia, a pro-Communist newspaper in Mexico City. The Commission has reliable evidence from a confidential source that Senora Duran as well as other personnel at the Cuban Embassy were genuinely upset upon receiving news of President Kennedy's death. Senora Duran's statements were made to Mexican officials soon after the assassination, and no significant inaccuracies in them have been detected. Documents fitting the description given by Senora Duran of the documents Oswald had shown her, plus a notation which she said she had given him, were found among his possessions after his arrest.

As noted above, this is not wholly accurate.  But, then, since the Commission didn't have the benefit of hearing details from Duran in person, it relied upon information provided to it by the Mexican DFS, via the CIA.  We have substantial reason to suspect that there were liberties taken by one, or both, of those agencies.

Anthony Summers discovered other witnesses that indicated that someone else was playing the role of Oswald in Mexico.

  The witness Contreras has offered food for thought. Perhaps he was being oversuspicious, he told the author, but he could not understand how, of all the thousands of students in Mexico City, the man called Oswald picked on three who really did have contacts in the Cuban embassy. Contreras remembered that he and his friends were drinking coffee, after a discussion and film show in the philosophy department, when the strange American accosted them. Nothing about the evening, or the moment, had anything to do with Cuba. How did the American know that these particular students might be able to help him?"

Obviously, Oswald could have no personal knowledge, but there are indications that he may have had some help in recruiting local contacts.  Summers found another highly interesting witness, and the following, written by the estimable Bill Kelly, spells out how all this may have come about:

QUOTE ON:

Anthony Summers, in Not In Your Lifetime (Marlowe & Co., N.Y., 1998), wrote on p. 441:

"In 1994, in Mexico City, the author interviewed Homobono Alcaraz Aragon, a lawyer. His name featured in reports indicating that he claimed he had met Oswald in Mexico City before the assassination. In the 1994 interview, Alcaraz said he had encountered Oswald at Sanborns restaurant, in the company of two or three other American students - all Quakers, like Alcaraz himself. The talk centered on efforts to get to Cuba, and Alcaraz said 'Oswald' eventually left with one of the Americans - whom Alcaraz recalls as being named either Steve Kennan (or Keenan) from Philadelphia. As Alcaraz recalled it, Keenan drove Oswald on his motorcycle to go to the Cuban consulate. Alcaraz seemed sincere, and abhorred publicity. He named a friend, Hector Gastelo (now a farmer in Sonora State) as probably having been present during the encounter with Oswald. (Interview with Alcaraz, 1993; CE 2121; and multiple FBI reports - available at the Assassinations Archive and Research Center, Washington D.C.; Miraba: HSCA III.177)."

In a footnote to the footnote, Summers also makes note that, "As this book went to press, the author became aware of information that the CIA ran an agent in Mexico, code named LICOZY - 3, who was a student from Philadelphia (Philip Agee, Inside the Company, p. 530).

The plot thickens as Agee reported (Inside the Company, Stonehill, 1975):

"The [Mexico City] station double-agent cases against the Soviets, LICOZY-1, LICOZY-3 and LICOZY-5, are all being wound up for lack of productivity or problems of control. One of these agents, LICOZY-3, is an American living in Philadelphia who was recruited by the Soviets while a student in Mexico City, but who reported the recruitment and worked for the Mexico City station. He worked for the FBI after returning to the US - the Soviet case officer was a UN official at one time - but recently Soviet interest in him has fallen off and the FBI turned the case back over to the Agency for termination."

Sanborns Restaurant, where Alcaraz and Kennan reportedly met Oswald, is also mentioned by Richard Case Nagell, who (according to Dick Russell in The Man Who Knew Too Much, Carroll & Graf, 1992, p. 354), wrote a letter to his friend Arthur Greenstein referring to Sanborns restaurant as a meeting place. While Sanborns Restaurant is reported in one reference (Russo) to be "just outside" Mexico City, Mary Ferrell's index notes that, (Steve) "Kennan was seen several times in Sanborns Restaurant next to the American Embassy bldg. in Mexico City."

[Note: If Sanborns Restaurant is next to the American Embassy, Larry Haapenen questions whether Oswald visited the American Embassy as well as the Cuban and Russian Embassies while he was there.]

QUOTE OFF

As a shill for CIA's vaporous Castro-did-it script, Russo would no doubt have good reason to place Sanborns restaurant as far away from the US Embassy as possible.  What I know is that the Sanborns location referred to isn't next door to the US Embassy, but has the very same street address.  Today, Sanborns is a successful chain of eateries.  However, after years of trying to determine the location of the specific Sanborns cited by Alcaraz, I have concluded that there was only one such location in Mexico City in 1963: inside the US Embassy building.

This single point raises a panoply of questions and related issues.  The broad-minded may give US intelligence staff in Mexico City the benefit of the doubt in it not being able to photograph Oswald repeatedly entering and exiting enemy diplomatic installations.  But how does one rationalize the fact that Oswald was seen inside the US Embassy restaurant by several Mexican students, without anyone in the Embassy knowing that the man then in contact with Cuban and Soviet consular staff was inside their building?  And, needless to say, if Oswald was inside the US Embassy, for what purpose, and whom on the US payroll did he meet while there?  If he was seen in the company of a man who fits the description given by Agee of a CIA operative, code-named LICOZY-3, how and why did CIA insist it had failed to detect Oswald's presence there while he was still in Mexico City?

Given the foregoing, I think it's reasonable to posit the fashion in which "Oswald" was directed toward Mexican students who were not only involved in pro-Castro activities, but were well placed to provide precisely the kind of assistance he needed to procure the Cuban transit visa that had already been denied him.

FWIW.....   

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Thank you for this fascinating information. The events in Mexico City seem central in understanding the CIA’s relationship with Oswald. It would have been vitally important that this information was kept out of the Warren Report for it would have been impossible to argue a case for the “lone gunman” theory if you have people developing a “legend” for Oswald in Mexico City. It is this “legend” of course that Tim keeps picking up on. However, as LBJ knew, this "legend" no longer made any political sense because of JFK's secret talks with Castro. Therefore, any cover-up, had to involve the cover-up of Oswald's "legend".

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John wrote:

It is this “legend” of course that Tim keeps picking up on.

John, respectfully, you must not be reading my posts carefully.

I think LHO was PROBABLY working for US intelligence.

I suspect the operation in Mexico City involved one of two possibilities: (1) the CIA wanted to use LHO's FPC credentials to insert a Castro assassin into Cuba; or (2) LHO was a "dangle" being used to ferret out people who wanted to kill Kennedy. If the latter, I think he made offers to kill Kennedy which were not picked up by the Cubans (who did not trust him and either did not want to kill Kennedy OR had their own assassination plan in the works).

It is not because I believe LHO was a Castro sympathizer who had sex with Silvia Duran that I think Castro did it. As noted above, I think LHO was probably working for US intelligence.

If LHO was working for US intelligence, I think that argues persuasively AGAINST U.S. intelligence institutional involvement. But he would then be a "perfect patsy" for either the Cubans or for another group sensing his involvement with US intelligence would generate a cover-up. Imagine: the CIA realizes one of its assets has been picked up for killing the President. It senses that it is a frame or, perhaps even worse, its asset has been doubled and killed the President. What better scenario to generate a CIA cover-up?

The argument that LHO was a Castro sympathizer who was paid money to kill Kennedy by Cubans while he was in Mexico City makes little sense. If Castro had wanted to kill Castro (as I have argued he did) he would have used his intelligence service, not a "loose cannon" like LHO.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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If LHO was working for US intelligence, I think that argues persuasively AGAINST U.S. intelligence institutional involvement.  But he would then be a  "perfect patsy" for either the Cubans or for another group sensing his involvement with US intelligence would generate a cover-up.  Imagine:  the CIA realizes one of its assets has been picked up for killing the President.  It senses that it is a frame or, perhaps even worse, its asset has been doubled and killed the President.  What better scenario to generate a CIA cover-up?

How could Castro be so confident that LBJ would cover-up his crime? Why should LBJ care about the CIA’s involvement with Oswald? That had nothing to do with LBJ and would not have motivated a cover-up of the evidence. You theory is based on the idea that the CIA was all-powerful. Sure they could destroy evidence when it suited them. They could also lie about what was in their files. However, they were not in a position to order a complete cover-up that involved all the important government agencies. Only LBJ had that power.

I have already argued that Castro had no motive to kill JFK (LBJ knew that and that is why he refused to accept the original Castro did it theory peddled by Hoover). However, let us imagine for a minute that Castro did organize the assassination of JFK. He would have spent sometime calculating how LBJ would react to such an event. His calculations would have been based on past events. Castro would have been aware of the Cold War sphere of influence agreement. He would have known he could not rely on any support from the Soviets if the US invaded Cuba. Any full-invasion by the US would have resulted in him losing power – the thing that he valued most. Yet he had already negotiated an agreement with JFK (via the Soviets and the Cuban Missile Crisis) that his country would not be invaded as long as Cuba did not attempt to influence events in neighbouring countries. He had already got what he wanted. Yet you suggest that he was willing to sacrifice all this on a hunch that LBJ would cover up the assassination because he wanted to protect the CIA and FBI.

Your understanding of the political situation in 1963 is lamentable. It is of the standard of your understanding of politics in 2005. By the way, that reminds me, when are you going to answer my question on your use of the word “communist”.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...indpost&p=30853

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Thank you for this fascinating information. The events in Mexico City seem central in understanding the CIA’s relationship with Oswald. It would have been vitally important that this information was kept out of the Warren Report for it would have been impossible to argue a case for the “lone gunman” theory if you have people developing a “legend” for Oswald in Mexico City. It is this “legend” of course that Tim keeps picking up on. However, as LBJ knew, this "legend" no longer made any political sense because of JFK's secret talks with Castro. Therefore, any cover-up, had to involve the cover-up of Oswald's "legend".

A lot of effort was expended to develop the "legend," and all of the more provocative post-assassination allegations about "Oswald" in Mexico City came, essentially, from a single source: David Atlee Phillips, via his various MC proxies.  Given the volume of such reports, and the rapidity with which they emerged from those proxies, one finds it increasingly difficult to understand why CIA's MC station failed to notify Langley of "Oswald"'s contacts with the Cubans at the same time that it alerted HQ about the Soviet contacts.  This wasn't disclosed to Langley until after the assassination, which seems a rather glaring omission.  It also wasn't disclosed until after the assassination that the Soviet diplomat "Oswald" encountered there - Kostikov - was actually the USSR's resident expert on assassinations and sabotage.  Nothing like keeping a pair of aces up the sleeve until a trump card will take the trick.

Oddly enough, a quick perusal of the 1967 CIA IG's Report discloses another pertinent detail.  In early 1961 [not long before the Bay of Pigs, if memory serves], a CIA officer stationed in MC was among the first to court Cubela for an attempt to whack Castro.  Although the IG's Report deletes that man's name, the background details provided [he knew Cubela from a prior posting in Havana] make it all but certain that the officer in question was David Atlee Phillips.  Oddly enough, the meeting between Cubela and Kostikov - that Tim Gratz reads so much into - appears to have occurred in this same time frame, meaning that Cubela was in touch with Soviet master-assassin Kostikov at the same time that Phillips was trying to recruit him.  I've yet to see Tim comment on that fact one way or the other.

Thus, we encounter a couple of odd anomalies. 

First, the man who seems to have initially tried to recruit Cubela to kill Castro - the man who ran CIA's anti-Cuban operations in Mexico City and had just been elevated to running all anti-Cuban operations in the hemisphere - failed to detect "Oswald" when he entered and exited the Cuban consulate no fewer than six times.  Or Phillips did detect those contacts and chose not to disclose them, for reasons that are open to speculation.

Second, despite this failure to contemporaneously notify Langley of "Oswald"'s contacts with the Cuban consular officials in MC, there was certainly no shortage of information about those same contacts shovelled in Langley's direction once that data would have the most incendiary political impact, immediately after the assassination.  Phillips sure learned a lot in a short period of time, didn't he?  Or, perhaps more accurately, caused a flood of such reports to suddenly appear out of nowhere. 

Third, all of the reports eminating from Mexico City after the assassination proved to be entirely worthless when subjected to even casual scrutiny.  Phillips heartily endorsed the Alvarado story, for example, only to have it crumble.  In his memoirs Phillips referred to this as a bogus and transparent provocation, as though he weren't the man who had floated it in the first instance.  When the Alvarado story foundered due to a mis-match in dates, Phillips found a second xxxx to tell the same lie, only with the proper dates.     

There is much wrong with the chronology of events that transpired in Mexico City.  Anyone seriously interested in solving the assassination's multiple mysteries must first resolve those anomalies.  

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John wrote:

Yet he [Castro]had already negotiated an agreement with JFK (via the Soviets and the Cuban Missile Crisis) that his country would not be invaded as long as Cuba did not attempt to influence events in neighbouring countries. He had already got what he wanted.

John, respectfully, it is YOUR understanding of the politics of the 1960s that is "lamentable" and one very large error in the above statement proves it.

Castro negotiated NOTHING with JFK.

The "no invasion" agreement was negotiated between JFK and the Russians. Castro was not even consulted about the negotiations. And that made him hopping mad. I just read an intriguing book about the Cuban crisis by veteran New York Times reporter Max Frankel.

So either you are not well-read on the history of the Cuban missile crisis or your writing was VERY sloppy--Castro was not involved in the negotiations that ended the Cuban missile crisis.

But there is more. You keep avoiding Operation Second Naval Guerilla. That was a second invasion of Cuba being planned by RFK with his best Cuban buddy Manuel Artime. RFK thought he could get by the "no invasion" pledge if the invasion was launched from the friendly shores of a foreign country. Moreover, it is my understanding that RFK thought the "no invasion pledge" was conditioned upon the US' inspection of the missile sites in Cuba to verify the missiles had been removed and Castro never permitted such inspections.

So it is DEAD WRONG to assert that the US would not have re-invaded Cuba under JFK but Castro had reason to fear that if JFK was gone LBJ might launch an invasion. As the saying goes, you stand the history "on its head". A second invasion of Cuba was indeed being planned under JFK. It was canceled by LBJ.

Castro got just what he wanted from the death of JFK: under LBJ, the politics of the US were turned from Cuba to SE Asia. That fact cannot be disputed.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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John, respectfully, it is YOUR understanding of the politics of the 1960s that is "lamentable" and one very large error in the above statement proves it.

Castro negotiated NOTHING with JFK.

You are obviously unaware of the documents released by the National Security Archive in November, 2003.

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/

This is something that JFK researchers knew about before these papers were released. The first time it was revealed was in Thomas Buchanan's book, Who Killed Kennedy? (1964). He is the person who you said you could not believe because Kenneth Rahn had described him as a "communist". The book was published before the Warren Report and the information was based on the testimony of Jean Daniel who had been negotiating with Castro on behalf of JFK. Daniel was actually involved in these talks with Castro when JFK was killed in Dallas. Others involved in these negotiations were Lisa Howard, William Attwood and Carlos Lechuga.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdanielJ.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhowardL2.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKattwood.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKlechuga.htm

I will allow you to read through those documents before I come back to you on the other points of your posting.

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