Dan Doyle

Jim, Any idea what happened to LHO's 1963 Cuban visa applications(4 copies) with his photograph stapled to each of them. Duran says that she filed one with his photograph locally at the Cuban consulate in MC and sent another with his photo to Havana (HSCA 1978)? Seems like if these have or could be produced, it would answer some questions. Given the politics involved, why would Cuba not want to produce these documents?

OSWALD in MEXICO Seeks a Cuban Visa Topic: Oswald in Mexico A presentation given in Rio de Janeiro, August 1995. By Arturo Rodriguez (Former Cuban Security Agent) http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0017.html "Since the moments after the Kennedy assassination, our embassy's personnel in Mexico noticed, with the exception of Azcue who was back in Cuba, that the accused assassin was the same person that had visited them in September. Alfredo Mirabal informed his Ministry officially, Lara only commented about it, given the small participation they had in the events and knowing of the report made by Mirabal, an official superior to them. On his part, Azcue in Cuba, did not recognize Oswald's photos published by the press as the person who visited the Cuban Consulate in Mexico. This contradiction between Azcue and Mirabal, were made evident in statements given by both to the investigators of the Select Committee in 1978. As for Mrs. Duran, she recognized Oswald from the first moment as the person that she helped in the Cuban Consulate at the end of September 1963." This document, if it's authentic, provides evidence from the Cuban government of Oswald's(or a double) presence at the Cuban Embassy in September of 1963. The veracity of the entire MC episode is hard to sort out 53 years later; especially so given the conflicting histories. And the bus trip didn't have to happen to get LHO to MC and back( flying works). The larger purpose of the MC trip was to further establish LHO as pro-Castro and point toward Cuba as adding and abetting him in his assigned actions for 11/22/63(which I don't think included the assassination of JFK)............ thereby creating a pretext for US military action against Cuba.

Jim Newman's book is a slog, not an easy read. I don't read fiction so I am unfamiliar with Stephen King's work, and I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the MSM make another movie in the spirit of Oliver Stone's JFK.......... because the consequences might lead to an ARRB Redux

Jim, Firstly let me say that I value your work highly. Destiny Betrayed Second Edition is one of the seminal works on the JFK assassination. I have read Parkland Reclaimed, but not The Assassins. I follow your CTKA site also, in fact my reading of your review of Oswald and the CIA a while ago lead me to purchase and read the book. As for the issue of whether LHO did actually go to MC, I don't see how this question can be answered too any high degree of certainty. As you write in your review, there are problems with the timeline of the embassy visits, the lack of photos of LHO at the embassies, a voice recording that doesn't match LHO's voice, LHO speaking Spanish, LHO speaking bad Russian, etc. But who's to say that another operation(s) was not in play to enhance(or discredit) LHO actions in MC. To paraphrase Angleton , intelligence operations are like a "wilderness of mirrors". As you write in your review of Oswald and The CIA 2008 editon, "In his new Epilogue for this 2008 edition, Newman explains why only someone who a.) Understood the inner workings of the national security state, and b.) Understood and controlled Oswald's files, could have masterminded something as superhumanly complex as this scheme. One in which the conspiracy itself actually contained the seeds that would sprout the cover-up." I agree with this notion that a plot (rogue) within a plot (sanctioned) was the genius of this scheme because it forced an immediate and lasting cover-up by the institutions involved in the sanctioned plot least they be held culpable for the events of 11/22/63. What was the sanctioned plot? I don't know but I believe it had its beginnings after JFK refused to endorse Operation Northwoods.

Having just read Newman's book, Oswald and the CIA, I find your leaning toward the premise that "LHO was not there" in MC rather intriguing; mainly because one of Newman's main points in his book is how there were considerable irregularities at CIA HDQS' with the filing of the reports concerning LHO's time in MC. Newman postulates that these filing irregularities demonstrated an "unusual" interest in LHO's activities in MC. So if LHO wasn't in MC, what does that do to Newman's premise?

First post here. One would think that Fidel's opinion on the events of 11/22/63 would be of some interest to the MSM at the time, especially so since high profile people like Clare Booth Luce and Edwin Walker, among others, were publicly suggesting that LHO was affiliated with the "Red Menace", i.e., Castro and Khrushchev etc. But that did not happen which, to me, evidences the involvement of the CIA in the operation, especially the cover-up. If there was one critical component of a regime change operation the CIA learned from their operations in Guatemala and Iran etc in the 1950's, it was to control (by way of the mass media) the public's perception of the events that had just taken place. Its applied "Shock Doctrine" but it takes a certain amount of time after the "event" to get all the MSM with the official version. To wit, the rifle found at the TSBD on 11/22/63 is originally identified and then broadcast through the MSM as a Mauser. Less than 24 later this Mauser is magically transformed into a Carcano and the MSM passively accepts this revision without question. While Castro's speech of 11/27/63 is impressive by way of exposing, so quickly, some of the glaring contradictions of the official version of 11/22/63, I find Joachim Joesten's 1964 pre-Warren Report book "Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy" even more impressive. Joesten, who I believe was living in France at the time, went to Dallas in December of 1963 to do his own investigation and came away convinced that the official version was a cover-up. This was 3 weeks after the event! Joesten's book, which I believe, came out in June of '64 in France, lays out the major tenets of the early counter-investigators, namely the choice of shots, the timing of the shots and the suitability of the cheap Carcano rifle for the task. In fact, and this is timely with the passing of Mark Lane, I wonder how much “Rush to Judgment “, published in 1966, was influenced by Joesten’s work.

I'm 68 years old and retired. Bio: Graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1970, BA Economics. Career as a builder and architectural designer. Presently live in Fairfield County, CT.